Meet Our CMN Hero Liliana!

For the most part, Liliana is just like any other teenager. The 15-year-old Sparta High School student is into social media, drawing and popular TV shows, and she loves animals, video games and hanging out with friends. But in late 2022, Liliana realized something wasn’t right.

It started when she noticed a lump on her neck, and a few months later, she became unusually fatigued. Then the pain set in. It rippled through her arms, chest and back – so bad once that a trip to the ER was required. Several tests later, Liliana and her family found out what was causing the pain: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia – or B-cell ALL.

Since her diagnosis in February 2023, Liliana and her mother Wendy have been in and out of the hospital. Liliana has faced 12 hospital stays, most of them unplanned for complications surrounding chemotherapy, bone marrow biopsies, weakness in her legs, bloody noses and fevers. It all added up to an extraordinary number of trips between the hospital and home and the expense added up.

But Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals has made the journey a little easier for Wendy, providing meal vouchers for her while visiting the hospital, gas cards for travel and funding for an effective – but expensive – drink that Liliana can have. For a single mother, having these added resources makes a huge difference and eliminates that portion of a stressful situation.

“I am a single mom, depending on one income, my family lives far away and we need every available local resource to help us fight this horrible disease,” Wendy says. “CMN help has totally made a difference in our lives.”