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Patient Stories

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At Children’s National Hospital, we provide compassionate, professional care to thousands of patients every year. Our patients come from all over the United States and from more than 20 countries around the world. They have many different conditions and experience unique paths on their treatment journeys – but through it all they experience the same level of warm, family-centered care. Discover our patients' stories to understand their journey and see how it may relate to your own.

Claire in a hulk onesie smiling as a teddy bear sits next to her.
Claire's Story
Claire in a hulk onesie smiling as a teddy bear sits next to her.

Claire's Story

Not only was Claire born small, but she was also born with a type of congenital heart disease called double outlet right ventricle – a condition that occurs once in every 6,000 to 10,000 births, when the aorta and the pulmonary artery connect to the heart’s ventricle. Claire’s lungs were receiving too much blood flow and she was in heart failure.

Heath Alexander and his daughter Anna, who he donated a kidney to.
Anna's Story
Heath Alexander and his daughter Anna, who he donated a kidney to.

Anna's Story

Heath Alexander of Silver Spring, Maryland, underwent a rigorous assessment to determine whether he was healthy enough to donate one of his kidneys to his daughter, 11-year-old Anna Sophia Alexander.

Cayden and Reagen as babies laying next to eachother sleeping
Cayden's Story Aortic Coarctation
Cayden and her family sitting outside

Cayden's Story Aortic Coarctation

Cayden was born with a life-threatening complex congenital heart defect. Learn how the hybrid procedure for HLHS helped Cayden.

Cuthbertson family strikes a pose
Heaven, Tiara and Messiah's Story Airway & Lungs
Heaven and Messiah hug

Heaven, Tiara and Messiah's Story Airway & Lungs

"My life has become better because I’m more educated and can help others,” Tiara Cuthbertson embraces being an asthma patient advocate.

Alicia playing baseball
Alicia's Story

Alicia's Story

Read about how specialized and integrated care from the orthopaedic experts at Children's National helped treat Alicia's hip condition.

Parker
Parker's Story Severe Combined Immunodeficiency
Parker

Parker's Story Severe Combined Immunodeficiency

After an uneventful pregnancy and birth, Tiffany Green was looking forward to bringing son, Parker James Cameron, home to bond with her and his sisters. But a week after Parker’s birth, Green learned something unsettling. Parker had no immune system in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johan smiles from his hospital bed
Johan's Story Allergic and Immunologic Disorders
Johan sits on hospital bed and smiles

Johan's Story Allergic and Immunologic Disorders

Johan, diagnosed with chronic granulomatous disease, underwent a bone marrow transplant and specialized T-cell infusion all before the age of 4.

Kids Jordan and Jessica Shapiro sitting in a kid-friendly grocery cart.
Jordan's Story
Kids Jordan and Jessica Shapiro sitting in a kid-friendly grocery cart.

Jordan's Story

Genetic conditions like Jordan’s, 16p11.2 duplication syndrome, can be difficult to identify and requires experts like those at the Rare Disease Institute to carefully analyze the patient’s symptoms and compare them to other documented cases.

Nina enters the pool
Nina's Story Allergic and Immunologic Disorders
Nina swim team

Nina's Story Allergic and Immunologic Disorders

Nina, an 18-year-old high school senior and competitive swimmer, is among a growing group of adolescents with a food allergy.

gabriella cheerleading
Gabriella's Story Scoliosis

Gabriella's Story Scoliosis

For Gabriella, scoliosis surgery changed her life — in more ways than she expected. Read Gabriella's Story.

Ashely smiling
Ashley's Story Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS)
Ashely smiling

Ashley's Story Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS)

Between her premature birth and her medical issues including her critical HLHS heart condition, her parents, Ana Mercedes and Axel Vela, were told that Ashley was unlikely to survive.
Sadie leans over pastel-colored blanket
Sadie's Story Newborn Neurologic Disorders

Sadie's Story Newborn Neurologic Disorders

Sadie is one of hundreds of infants with acute encephalopathy who have received whole-body therapeutic hypothermia at the Children's National neonatal intensive care unit. Whole-body therapeutic hypothermia is offered in the first few hours of life to preserve brain cells and to stave off disability or death.