Meet Mia! UH Rainbow’s 2025 Champion

January 16, 2025 | By sdavison

Before Mia was born her parents learned she had a rare congenital heart defect called Ebstein’s anomaly which gave Mia only a 10% chance of survival and a life expectancy of 20 minutes. In anticipation of the worst, her parents began planning a funeral.

On February 19^th, 2011, Mia came into the world, five weeks early and with no signs of life. Her care team was able to revive her and Mia was rushed to intensive care. The hospital where Mia was born had only seen one other case like hers so Mia’s family and care team searched for a doctor who could give the family hope. When they found Dr. Martin Bocks at another Children’s Miracle Network Hospital, they knew he was their best chance. At just seven-days-old, Mia was life-flighted to Michigan.

Mia spent the first 340 days of her life in the hospital, battling numerous cardiac arrests and strokes, requiring several open-heart surgeries and other invasive procedures. Still unsure of her prognosis, Mia and her family went home to make memories and enjoy as much time as they could together. Then Mia celebrated her first birthday, and second, and eventually fifth. She was still spending time in the hospital but those stays became shorter and less frequent over her first five years.

In 2016, Dr. Martin Bocks moved to University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s in Cleveland, significantly closer to home for Mia and her family. Once at UH Rainbow, Dr. Bocks was able to pull together a multidisciplinary care team to address all of her health needs including specialists in audiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, and nephrology to name a few. This team is able to provide the family with a comprehensive plan, streamlining appointments and significantly decreasing Mia’s anxiety around hospital visits.

At 13-years-old, Mia continues beating the odds. In addition to being closer to home, the move to UH Rainbow brought the ability to focus on Mia’s quality of life. The Family and Child Life Services team ensures she is prepared for procedures and can process her emotions through art and music therapy. She also enjoys visits from the book cart and other fun resources to stay entertained during stays.

UH Rainbow is an academic medical center, leading the way in research and development to provide the very best possible care. For Mia, this means specialized equipment that helps with placing IVs to ensure “pokes” are less painful. Mia has even gotten involved in advancing the care of patients like her by fundraising over $50,000 for Dr. Bocks’ research!

Most importantly, all of the comforts your donations help to provide coupled with her incredible “friends” on her care team makes UH Rainbow a place Mia is excited to visit!