Lukas was born on April 28, 2017. The day after he was born, a blood test revealed his kidneys were only functioning at 20%. He was transferred to the NICU at Levine Children’s Hospital on April 30th where he would spend the first seven weeks of his life. It was quickly determined that intervention would be the only way to keep him alive. Luke started dialysis when he was only a week old and had four surgeries in the first month of his life. When peritoneal dialysis didn’t work, he started hemodialysis in June and fortunately his labs began to stabilize. He was discharged from the hospital on June 13th but was required to return three days a week for hemodialysis treatments.
In November of 2017, his mom and dad received very encouraging news that Luke’s kidneys were functioning enough for him to grow and thrive without dialysis. While it was understood this was only temporary and that a transplant was inevitable, this was a huge relief to know that Luke could stay home and live a normal life for a while. He did well off dialysis for some time and continued to grow until his doctors determined that he was big enough for surgery in 2019.
Erin was selected to be Luke’s kidney donor. The surgery was performed in September of 2019 at Levine Children’s Hospital. Luke and Erin were both in the excellent care of their medical teams. Just hours after the surgeries doctors reported that Luke’s kideny was working perfectly! Luke spent a total of 19 days recovering in the hospital after his surgery. Jeff was by Luke and Erin’s side every step of their recovery.
Today Luke is a happy, healthy 5 year old who loves baseball and will be starting kindergarten in August.
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.
Hi Kristen!
I stumbled upon Luke’s page and want to help!
If you can email me at chaunceyboggs@gmail.com, I would love to feature Luke’s story on my fundraising page in honor of my brother. I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!
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