Toddlers Become Best Friends While Recovering From Kidney Transplants
Ayden and Aubrey became fast friends after meeting at a Boston Hospital.
— -- Many kids dread going to the hospital, but for Aubrey Ferrell, 2, and 3-year-old Ayden Mosher, it has become a destination since it's the only place where the new best friends get to hang out.
The pair met as they both recovered from kidney transplants last year at Boston Children's Hospital. Since Aubrey's family is from Tennessee and Ayden's family is in upstate New York, they are only able to hang out and play when they're in the hospital for their checkups.
Ayden's mother, Cindy Davis, of Herkimer, New York, said the pair became best friends nearly instantly after a chance meeting at the coloring table in the waiting room.
"You would have thought they had known each other forever...they get so excited," Davis told ABC News. "This past week when we went, I just heard this voice yell 'Ayden!'"
Ayden was born with polycystic kidney disease, where cysts develop in the kidneys, and had a kidney transplant last September. Davis said after meeting Aubrey, the kids have helped each other get through all the blood tests and various shots as part of the recovery process.
"Normally our clinic rooms are right next door to each other," said Davis. "He'll go to the door to see if they’re OK."
“Aubrey is my best friend,” Ayden said on the Boston Children's website.
Aubrey's mother Janna Ferrell, of Myland, Tennessee said the kids usually go get their vital signs recorded together and will take turns stepping on the scale or having their blood pressure taken.
"She gets more excited about going," Ferrell told ABC News. "When I tell her we’re going to hospital…she says ‘Go see Ayden?'"
Ferrell said the staff and others at the hospital enjoy getting to see the kids run and play.
"They just run around and at least one parent will kind of have to coral them to the lab," Ferrell said. She joked that the staff was also in on the match and that one clinical assistant has dubbed them "the love connection."
People might struggle to understand how sick these kids once were as they they zoom down the hallway to play. Aubrey was diagnosed with congenital nephrotic syndrome, a kidney disorder that causes your body to excrete too much protein in your urine, at 4 months according to Boston Children's hospital and had to start dialysis at 18 months.
Ferrell said even though the kids only see each other at the hospital for now, she's hopeful it will make growing up with a transplanted kidney a little easier on both kids as they deal with taking life-long medication to ward off organ rejection.
"It gets to her understand that she’s not the only one," Ferrell said of Aubrey having a friend who also has gone through a transplant. "[As] they get older that’ll help them not feel alone."
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