A Facebook post helped change the life of toddler Miles Wagner when the post connected Miles to a woman willing to be a living kidney donor.
2-year-old Miles Wagner was diagnosed with a rare genetic case of primary hyperoxaluria, which can lead to kidney failure. This is the second organ transplant for the toddler.
Parents Ryan and Ashley Wagner are no strangers to serious diseases. Ryan was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer during his wife’s pregnancy. This lead the couple to post updates about his condition on Facebook. Once Miles was born, they started to include updates on him, which caused their following to keep growing.
“It started long before we had Miles… we had a following for quite a while,” said Ashley Wagner. “It’s kind of crazy how much strength we’ve gotten from their support [online] and they’re complete strangers.”
As Miles condition worsened, his doctors decided that he would need both a liver and kidney transplant. The couple turned to Facebook for help.
One of the people who responded was Elizabeth Wolodkiewicz, a former high school classmate to the small town Illinois couple. It took weeks of testing to determine if Wolodkiewicz was a donor match.
“This is the big light at the end of the tunnel,” Ashley said. “When we started this whole journey, it seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel was never going to be there.”