Meet Amarillo’s Miracle Kid Chadlee and See How CMN Helped Save His Life

The Children's Miracle Network Celebration is a big event each year in Amarillo, Texas.  The CMN Mediathon gives community members a chance to come together to help raise money for CMN.

Many people wonder about what the Children's Miracle Network does and if they really do help our local kids, and the answer is, yes, they do. Their mission is to promote and improve the quality of children's healthcare.

Meet Chadlee, an Amarillo CMN Miracle Kid

Chadlee was born at 26 weeks. To put that into perspective, a full-term baby is 40 weeks, and if born before 39 weeks, the baby is pre-term. Chadlee had just passed the halfway point of the pregnancy.  At birth, Chadlee was 1 pound and 7 ozs.

After he was born, he spent 16 1/2 months in and out of hospitals in Amarillo, Dallas, and Houston.  Chadlee was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension.

Everything was very touch and go for a long, long time.

During Chadlee's stay at the hospital in Dallas, the doctors told Chadlee's family that there was nothing else they could do and to let nature run its course.  Of course, Chadlee's mom, CJ, wasn't having any of that.  So CJ and Stephen made the decision to put Chadlee on a plane and send him to Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.

When we got there, it was like, it was almost like an aha moment, like, this is where we need to be, and this is going to be who's going to help us get our baby better.

Keep in mind that all of this was during COVID, and CJ was the only one allowed to be with her baby, and she couldn't leave the room. Dad Stephen wasn't even allowed to be at the hospital.

During the stay, because of all the strict rules and stipulations, CJ was doing a lot of Chadlee's care, and eventually, she was ready to take him home. The doctors were advising against it

And they told me, you know, if you take him home, you probably won't have him six weeks, and I'm like, you might not have me six weeks if I don't, you know. So I took him home, and he thrived.

Today Chadlee is 6 years old, he still has a trach and remains on a ventilator at night due to his chronic lung disease. He isn't able to eat by mouth, so he is fed through a tube. Chadlee attends public school and lives life in his Chadlee way.

Although he is non-verbal, he knows how to communicate with his mom, dad, and big sister Caydee, and from what I am told, he gives the best hugs.

He'll tell you what he wants, he'll just drag you wherever he wants to go, and he points at it, and he knows exactly what he wants in life, and he's gonna get it.

Read More: The Children's Miracle Network Mediathon |

How Has Children's Miracle Network Helped Chadlee?

Chadlee was able to go on a trip to Disney World, but he couldn't take his oxygen tanks on the plane with him. Unfortunately, he has to have his oxygen to survive. That's where CMN came in, they were able to provide Chadlee with a special machine, which was a portable oxygen concentrator. This would allow Chadlee to be able to fly on a plane.

Not only was CMN able to provide that important life-saving machine that he uses every day, but they have also helped Chadlee's family with emergency financial help so that they were able to get to the hospitals in Dallas and Houston.

Stephen told us that Chadlee's sister Caydee has jumped in and helped with Chadlee's care, and at 12 years old, she has been inspired to reach a goal of being a pediatric nurse.

She decided that she is going to be a pediatric intensive care nurse on the 10th floor at Texas Children's Hospital, because that's where we spent all of our time. She wants to go into the nursing field.

Who knows what the future holds for Chadlee, but rest assured, he will face it with a smile on his face.

Chadlee is a miracle!

How Can I Help out the Children's Miracle Network?

Join us,101.9 the Bull, 96.9 KISS FM, 98.7 The Bomb, Mix 94.1, and our friends at KAMR on Tuesday, May 6th,  for the Children's Miracle Network Mediathon. We'll be broadcasting live throughout the day and sharing stories like Chadlee's and other kids helped by the Children's Miracle Network.