Connecticut Children's Blog

For one afternoon every month Jillian Duffy, Miss Connecticut 2019, visits Connecticut Children’s and makes her way room-to-room meeting with patients. The visits are part of the partnership between the Miss America Organization and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, and they connect directly with her platform “Jillian’s Journey: Pediatric Cancer Research and Awareness.” Some of the […]

Anthony had been in remission for more than three years when a routine MRI scan revealed another ependymoma, his third brain tumor. “It was devastating,” says Jennifer, Anthony’s mom. “Things had been going so well for so long.” To make matters worse, Anthony had already received the maximum amount of radiation during treatment for the […]

by Sasha Dagnall I can’t imagine having a better daughter than my little girl, Rylie. She’s 16 and a sophomore at Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. Rylie’s an honor-roll student and plays on the school tennis team, among other activities. I know the teenage years often involve drama, but Rylie understands better than […]

By: Kelsey Otero My daughter, Leilani, is a lively little 6-year-old. She loves coloring and making arts and crafts projects. She’s so happy, and she’s a lot of fun. There isn’t much in life that fazes Leilani, which I find amazing. Early in her life, Leilani was diagnosed with a rare disease called Langerhans cell […]

It started like every other family dinner. Kelly sat around the table with her parents, grandparents, and two older siblings. They each talked about their days. Kelly, who was 10 at the time, mentioned that she felt an odd pain in her left leg. Her parents assumed it was growing pains—both of her older siblings […]

Armani Hernandez’s father, David, was apprehensive in the fall of 2015 when 14-year-old Armani said he wanted to play football at school. “He was a baseball player,” David says, “and I was skeptical about football because it has such a high injury rate.” And sure enough, soon after starting football, Armani complained that his arm […]

Charlotte Wesoloskie is a sweet, soft-spoken girl with a big heart and an even bigger message for children diagnosed with cancer: “Don’t be scared and never give up!” As a cancer survivor, 11-year-old Charlotte speaks from experience and truly “walks the walk.” And, as the inspiration behind a growing fundraising phenomenon known as PJ Day […]

Gavin David is an ebullient child, always happy, always running, says his mother, Lindsay. “He’s a ball of sunshine,” she says. So Lindsay wasn’t particularly alarmed when Gavin woke up with a bloody nose one morning in March 2017. His mother figured it was just winter in New England and let it go. But the […]

When Genevieve Neiman was 10 years old, her parents had no idea that a routine doctor’s visit would lead to a cancer diagnosis. Or that she would begin her summer vacation the very next day as an inpatient at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. The family was packing for a trip to Florida when they received […]

When Madisen Yanez was almost 2 years old, she told her mother she had a “boo-boo.” Little did her mother know, the “boo-boo” was actually a tumor the size of a grapefruit—engulfing her kidney. “She kept saying she had a ‘boo-boo’ in her belly,” Megan recalled. “She started complaining right before Christmas. We called it […]