Oliver Wilhelm, 7, of West Virginia, was born prematurely and developed a kink in his bowel that necessitated the surgical removal of more than a foot of bowel. Because of his short gut syndrome, he wasn’t able to eat very much at all as a child. Oliver was listed for a small bowel transplant, which he received at Children’s Hospital on March 4, 2009. Recently, Oliver returned to Children’s Hospital for a follow-up appointment and to visit the nurses and other staff who cared for him.

Oliver, who is back to being a rambunctious, fun-loving boy, had plenty to say and plenty of hugs to go around.

The transplant unit at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC is getting a multimedia makeover thanks to Make Room for Kids, a social media-driven fundraising project, and local Microsoft employees. Working with the Mario Lemieux Foundation, the group partnered to raise money and multimedia donations to outfit the transplant unit with gaming equipment and laptops. On Thursday, April 29, they delivered 24 Xbox consoles, two Xbox kiosks, extra controllers and dozens of games to the hospital’s transplant unit. Each patient room on the transplant unit was outfitted so that all patients have access to gaming and computers during their hospitalizations.

Make Room for Kids chose the transplant unit for their multimedia project because patients on that unit often are in isolation due to their compromised immune systems. Their average length of stay is nearly five weeks. Make Room for Kids was started by Ginny Montanez of the popular Pittsburgh blog That’s Church, who encouraged her readers to donate. In a week, they raised more than $15,000 for the patients at Children’s Hospital.

Local Microsoft employees, including Luke Sossi, heard about the effort and donated the Xbox consoles, controllers, games, etc. on their own. The money raised will be used to buy laptops and other items that will be delivered at a later date.

What better way to recognize Donate Life Month in April than to share with you the story of 5-year-old Daniel Jaramillo of Oakton, Va. Dani, who was born with a disease that affected his kidneys and eventually his liver, received a liver transplant at Children’s Hospital in February 2010. However, he is still in kidney failure and continues to be dependent on regular dialysis to keep him alive as he waits for a kidney transplant.

Last year, surgeons at Children’s Hospital performed 99 transplants in kids, more than any other center in the country. However, despite all of advancements in the field of pediatric transplantation, we are still limited by the number of organs available for transplant. If you’re not an organ donor, please consider becoming one.

For more information about the Hillman Center for Pediatric Transplantation at Children’s Hospital, visit www.chp.edu/transplant. For more information about organ donation, please visit the Center for Organ Recovery and Education at www.core.org.