Hi! I’m Viktor and I am 13 years old (a teenager now!). For those of you who didn’t read my story last year: I was born in San Diego, CA. I was a healthy baby boy, but I soon started getting sick. For 11 years I had many hospitalizations in San Diego. I was diagnosed with malabsorption syndrome – my small intestine was not absorbing the nutrients I needed and I had to get IV nutrition. As I got older, my body was running out of places to put the IV lines that had been my life support. Because of this, on March 14th, 2011, I received a Small Bowel Transplant. When I got the call to come in for the transplant I was so scared, but my parents told me I was going to be OK. After my transplant, I was in the hospital for a long time, but I FINALLY got to go home. And… I got to go back to school this year!! The Chase Child Life Program has helped me a lot. In the beginning, I really needed them to help me understand what was going on. But now, I’m the expert. I like to talk to kids who are new to the hospital and help them out. It’s been more than a year since my transplant, and I still have to come to doctor’s appointments a lot and sometimes come to the hospital. My Child Life Specialist, Megan, helps me to keep busy. I’m still working on my dream of learning to draw and being like Seth McFarland, from The Family Guy.
I am a member of The Explorers! Will you run for us?
