Elliot is a fighter. Diagnosed with achondroplasia, the most common form of Dwarfism, at 32 weeks in utero, tiny Elliot faced huge challenges before he was even born. With concerns about his chest size and the complications it could cause, Elliot’s family sought the expertise of several children’s hospitals across the country—from Philadelphia to Los Angeles—undergoing genetic testing to confirm his diagnosis before he was eventually delivered in Los Angeles in June 2023.
Elliot spent his first month of life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in Los Angeles. He was discharged home with his family in Las Vegas. In August 2024, Elliot was admitted to the hospital again, this time near their home in Las Vegas, for breathing issues associated with his size. He ended up being life-flighted to another hospital in Los Angeles, but his parents quickly realized that Elliot needed specialized care that only certain hospitals could provide. That’s how they found Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego.
Elliot was once again airlifted and admitted to Rady Children’s, where he would begin a nearly yearlong journey to health. This tiny toddler toppled extra-large hurdles to finally head home from the hospital, proving that while he may be small, he’s also mighty.
ELLIOT’S DREAM TEAM
Once safely in San Diego, Elliot spent 222 days under the care of a multidisciplinary team dedicated to his lifesaving care. At Rady Children’s, he received expert care from specialists in pulmonology, ENT and aerodigestive and orthopedics, and in the pediatric ICU (PICU). From the moment they arrived, Elliot’s family knew they were somewhere special—somewhere to get the exceptional care their extraordinary boy needed to survive.
“The staff at Rady Children’s had a different level of training, and the larger care team there provided comprehensive support that was not available in previous hospitals,” says Elliot’s dad, John. “The specialized team was essential in helping him through those critical times.”
Mom Kelly added, “They saved him many, many times.”
One of Elliot’s life-saving specialists, Aparna Rao, MD, a board-certified pediatric pulmonologist at Rady Children’s and clinical professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, recalled meeting Elliot for the first time when he was in the PICU.
“Elliot has achondroplasia, which causes his chest wall and his breathing to be very different from other children. He’s very restricted, so when he takes a deep breath in, his chest only moves so much,” Dr. Rao explains. “When I met him, he was intubated and in the ICU. He was really, really sick.”
Because Elliot hadn’t been treated at Rady Children’s before, his new doctors did not know the exact cause, but Dr. Rao theorizes that an acute aspiration event led to a lung injury, resulting in the need to be intubated.
“He was struggling to grow, he probably had sleep disordered breathing, and he had a complete dysfunction of gas exchange—which means he couldn’t breathe on his own,” she continues. “Our whole goal was to stabilize his lungs from an acute lung injury to something more sustainable.”
Achieving that goal took a team of superheroes. Thankfully, Rady Children’s has heroes at the ready to treat even the most extreme of situations, like the one Elliot was facing.
“Elliot’s lungs were seeing a multisystem burden—from his abdomen, which would get distended and shrink the lungs, preventing him from breathing well; from pulmonary hypertension and his chest wall; and, to some degree, from his brain as well. All of it combined resulted in a really sick kid in the ICU,” Dr. Rao explains.
“With the help of this multidisciplinary group, including GI, ENT, pulmonary, orthopedics, cardiology, and the ICUs, we were able to align all his systems and finally send him home on a lot of support. But that was only after such a huge team effort—physicians, nurses, the parents at the bedside and allied health professionals educating the parents on how to bring him home. You know, they say it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a hospital like Rady Children’s to transition a child home.”
It’s that village that Dr. Rao says really makes Rady Children’s stand out as a leader—and the reason it was the right place for Elliot’s family to seek care.
“They were not looking for one particular physician; they were looking for a team. And they found that team at Rady Children’s,” she says. “The collaboration, team effort, all the specialties coming together for the sickest child—that is what Rady Children’s is known for.”
MISSION POSSIBLE
When Elliot finally left Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego in March 2025, he was heading to his brand-new home in San Diego, where his parents and five siblings moved from Las Vegas to be near him as he grew stronger and healthier. In the eight months he spent in the hospital, fighting to survive, he also finally began to thrive. Against all odds, he’s learned to communicate, met milestones once thought impossible and captured the hearts of everyone around him with his resiliency and infectious personality.
Elliot has also picked up an especially endearing habit: flexing his muscles. His father noticed the behavior and immediately suspected something was wrong and that his muscles were involuntarily tightening up—then he saw Elliot smile. It turned out a night shift respiratory therapist in the PICU had demonstrated “toughness” by gritting his teeth and flexing. He taught Elliot and they’d engage in playful back-and-forth. Since then, flexing has become his signature move. It’s also a testament to his and his family’s strength and resilience.
“Nobody gave up. The child, the family, the team—everyone was completely engaged,” says Aparna Rao. “There were times we had tough conversations, but Elliot’s family trusted the team, and trusted that they could get him better. That’s what made it all come together for Elliot: the flexibility of and resilience of the family, the love for the child, the trust in the system,” she continues.
“And obviously, he’s very resilient, right? Because he uplifted the team. It’s a two-way street when you work with really sick kids. You start thinking it’s mission impossible. But somewhere along the way, with all our combined experiences, all our combined expertise and the trust in the family and the team, that’s where the mission impossible becomes mission possible.”