Children’s Miracle Network: Meet Noah Carroll and his family

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - It’s not just worst-case scenarios that the Children’s Miracle Network gets involved in. You might be surprised who qualifies for its help. The Carroll family took a chance and applied, and they’re very thankful they did so.

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Happy energy just flows off 11-year-old Noah Carroll. It had been since he was a toddler, so it was concerning to his parents, Andy and Jessica, when he started complaining about pain when he was two.

Andy says, “he was active and his normal self during the day, but then at nighttime, he would have trouble sleeping and be in pain. Then one day, he woke up, and he just could not stand up. He was doubled over, and obviously, there was something wrong.”

A trip to urgent care turned into an urgent trip to the hospital.

Andy tells us, “his organs had gone through a hole in his diaphragm. He was born with a diaphragmatic hernia that wasn’t noticed in any scans that were done before he was born.”

Noah recovered pretty quickly, and the Carroll family was able to get on a payment plan to cover the hospital bill. But then they got hit with the extra cost of Noah seeing a pulmonologist and having to use a costly inhaler.

Noah’s mom, Jessica, says, “We found out we were going to have to pay for a $200 inhaler every month, and insurance wasn’t going to help us cover it, and that’s when I started to panic. We were going to be able to fit all the pieces together, and now we’re not.”

Jessica started searching online for medical bill assistance and came across Children’s Miracle Network but they weren’t sure their situation fit the bill.

Andy says, “We thought it was for people who were dealing with serious, ongoing issues. We weren’t really sure we fit that category. We did fill out the application, turned it in, and were frankly, pretty surprised and blessed that they came back and were able to help us with some of those follow-up items.”

Noah has been a pretty healthy kid ever since, playing with his friends and competing in several sports, including his favorite, hockey. But he makes sure to find time to also volunteer for CMN. He says it feels good to give back to the organization that helped his family. And it has its perks, too.

Noah tells us, “I’ve been on the radio twice now, and now I’m on KY3, and I’ve handed out magazines and lemonade, so it’s been a pretty fun journey, you could say.”

The Carrolls’ experience with CMN really opened their eyes. Jessica says you’d be surprised by just how many different families it helps, and she encourages everyone she knows to donate to the cause.

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