Ben Mitchel

When Ben was about 8 months old, he started “failing to thrive” as they say in the medical world. He wasn’t growing, becoming pale, and weak. After lots of work up sadly down wrong paths, we switched pediatricians and he had labs drawn which showed he was in kidney failure and severely anemic. We were told to get to the hospital immediately. The night he was admitted, we learned that he had something called posterior urethral valves. This is like a screen of tissue between the urethra and the bladder that is supposed to go away while in utero. However, because this tissue was still present, it caused Ben to not be able to fully empty his bladder. Unbeknownst to us, for those first 10 months of his life, his bladder muscle had been pushing and pushing to try to get all
the urine out against that small screen. Because of the pressure and back up in the bladder, this then irreversibly damaged his kidneys. He was able to have surgery a week later to remove that excess tissue. But sadly the damage to his bladder and kidneys was done. Thanks to modern medicine and later getting established with our amazing team at Cincinnati Children’s, Ben has been able to lead a seemingly normal life since that time. There are lots of silent medical treatments and symptoms he deals with that no one ever sees. Through it all, he has remained resilient. He is so very strong, both mentally and physically. We were told early on that the biggest strain to his kidneys would come with puberty, which is a time of rapid growth for the body.

So here we are. Ben will be 16 in October, and last Fall his kidney filtration numbers began to dramatically decline. Though we had hoped by some small miracle to get him to adulthood with his own kidneys, we realize now that will not happen. He is getting perilously close to needing dialysis. He has had multiple matched donors, including family members, who unfortunately for one reason or another have been declined to donate. So we are now pleading for help and the kindness of perhaps perfect strangers. Ben is a typical teenager in so many ways…loves hanging with his friends and brothers, playing the sport of baseball which he loves, gaming, eating constantly, learning to drive, attending high school and planning for the future. The ways he is not a typical teenager are obvious. Our goal is to restore him to good health by getting him the new kidney he needs!

To register to become Ben’s living donor hero, please contact -Tina Stanley at Cincinatti Children’s Hospital at 513-636-4312- or email at tina.stanley@cchmc.org

Or register through the National Kidney Registry at –https://www.kidneyregistry.com/kfork/