CMN Ambassador Stories

5-year-old Caden Buth loves singing, dancing and acting—but like a dinosaur or a robot.

When patients are diagnosed with a chronic illness, they often become experts in their own care management and the details of their disease. Eight-year-old Abby Sapp is no exception.

For the first seven months of her life, Kinsey was a perfectly normal baby. When her arms and legs suddenly began to swell, her parents learned that Kinsey was in kidney failure.

When Evangeline Owens was only 5 days old, she woke up with a low body temperature and in her mother’s arms.

Most sixth graders’ biggest worry is what’s for dinner, or how to convince parents to buy the latest video game. When Jack Murray was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, at 11 years old, he and his family were focused on something much more important.

Twelve years ago on Cat Chennell's 4th birthday, she was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension. Doctors told her family that she would probably not live to see her 5th birthday.

A little over three years ago, Harper Jean “Bean” Youmans made her entrance to the world. Six months after her birth, her mother noticed some alarming things.

Arden was born prematurely at 32 weeks, becoming extremely ill at just 6 weeks old. Doctors in the UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit discovered that her heart had grown to take up 75 percent of her chest cavity and was crushing her lungs.

Just by looking at her, you would never know that McKenna was diagnosed — while still in utero — with multiple complex congenital heart defects.

Fourteen years ago, Parker Fox couldn’t leave his home much of the time. He had numerous ear infections and several cases of pneumonia that kept him indoors.