Lanayah’s Journey

Lanayah has always been a healthy active girl. She began playing soccer when she was 5 years old, playing with the rec league every fall and spring season. Then she was invited to play with a club team, Newton Lady Storm, where she played for the next several years. In 2018, she decided to take a break from soccer and focus on her new love of basketball. Over the past few years she started getting tired more easily during physical activity. No one ever thought anything about it and just thought it was due to her growing.

However, November 10, 2019, Lanayah’s journey was about to change. That evening, Lanayah began having chest pains and shortness of breath and assumed she was just having an asthma attack. After a visit to her doctor and a cardiologist, Lanayah was transported to Children’s Mercy Hospital for heart failure. She was diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy. The medical team tried several medicines to treat her diagnosis and symptoms. After several hospital admissions into the PICU from December 2019 to early January 2020, she was evaluated for a heart transplant.

On January 16, 2020, she was placed on the heart transplant list. January 21, 2020, she received her gift of a new heart! Our friends and family have started this COTA campaign to raise funds for transplant-related expenses, such as medical expenses for Lanayah’s heart transplant. COTA’s partnership with Lanayah is for her lifetime, so she will also receive assistance when she needs a second heart transplant as an adult.

Please consider donating to COTA in honor of Lanayah to help Lanayah now and in her future. Every amount matters and helps. Please consider sharing Lanayah’s story with your friends and family, too. Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers.

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.