One in a Million

Equipped with an irresistible smile, limitless curiosity and arms always open for hugs, Logan Parker was born ready for adventure. In 2017, he and his family went on the journey of a lifetime as Logan represented McLane Children’s Hospital as the 2017 Children’s Miracle Network Champion for Texas.

Logan served as one of 50 champions representing children’s hospitals in each state and the 10 million children who are treated at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals every year. He and his family traveled around the country to raise awareness about the need for continued philanthropy at children’s hospitals to fund treatments, services, equipment and charitable care.

This young adventurer is quite literally one in a million. Logan has a rare condition called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, or PMD, a central nervous system defect that affects mobility and speech. There are only 1,000 known cases world-wide.

Logan and his family are frequent visitors at McLane Children’s. Once a week, patients roaming the halls might catch a glimpse of a wheelchair with tractors on the sides or overhear a conversation in what his mother calls the dinosaur dialect as Logan participates in speech, physical and occupational therapies.

“Logan loves it,” Doris Parker says of her son. “It’s not like we’re going to a hospital, it’s more like we’re going to see family. He trusts his therapists, and they make him work hard, but he never wants to quit.”

Logan’s condition requires a team of highly specialized pediatric providers, including therapists, a neurologist, neuro-ophthalmologist, orthopedic surgeon and others. With McLane Children’s nearby, Logan has everything he needs.

“Logan requires so much care and so much therapy, and having a shorter commute to a hospital close to home makes it much easier for us,” Doris says. “There’s not enough we could say to thank all the people who give to make this hospital run the way it does.”

Logan is one of thousands of McLane Children’s patients who benefit from generous gifts to the hospital and Children’s Miracle Network. He makes frequent use of imaging equipment such as MRI machines and X-ray machines for bone density tests, and someday, once fundraising is complete, Logan will enjoy a newly renovated space planned for the physical and occupational therapy department.

Unfortunately, PMD is a degenerative disorder, but Logan’s family knows his journey is far from over. “We were told he probably wouldn’t live past the age of ten,” Doris says, “but, just look at him. He’s eleven years old, and he’s not going anywhere. We know that because of McLane Children’s and all of the therapies that Logan receives, he’ll be with us for a long time.”