CINCINNATI — Even after hours hooked up to a dialysis machine, 20-month-old Mariah is still laughing.
“Hi! Hi! Hiiii!” she calls out to me, scooting across the floor and waving.
Her joy fills the room — a sound that feels almost impossible, considering everything she’s already endured.
Mariah was born at UK Hospital in Kentucky, but was quickly sent to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where she spent her first three months in the NICU. Doctors discovered a rare and complex combination of medical conditions that would shape the rest of her life.
Watch below to see more of Mariah's journey:
“They told me she has a cloacal anomaly and that she would have to be sent to Cincinnati Children’s because they couldn’t do the surgery on a baby her size that she needed,” her mother, Deborah Way, told me.
Mariah was born with two kidneys that are fused together and positioned low in her pelvis. As doctors continued monitoring her health, she was also diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare eye cancer caused by the RB1 gene.
She underwent chemotherapy from the first month of her life through December 2024. Eventually, doctors made the difficult decision to stop treatment because her body could no longer tolerate it.
Despite it all, her upbeat personality never changed.
“It is so out of the ordinary for her not to be this bubbly, happy baby. It is God-sent really,” Way said.
Last summer brought another turning point. Mariah’s kidney function continued to decline, and doctors decided dialysis was no longer optional — it was necessary for her survival.
“A lot of driving, a lot of treatment, but she needs it to stay alive. It is literally her livelihood,” Way said.
Three times a week, Mariah and her family make the trip from Danville, Kentucky, to Cincinnati Children's — a roughly three-hour drive each way. The travel is exhausting, and Way says reliable transportation has become a growing concern.
“Half the time it doesn’t start,” she said about the vehicle they currently rely on.
More surgeries are ahead.
Mariah was diagnosed with severe hip dysplasia in April and will eventually need corrective surgery, followed by time in a spica cast — a special kind of cast designed to keep hips and legs from moving. That will require a specialized medical car seat — and ultimately, a vehicle large enough to safely accommodate it.
Still, Way says faith has carried her through the hardest moments.
“I like to pray in the car before we travel and my 4-year-old knows that. She’s like 'mommy let’s pray,' so that’s just like my comfort in between finding the happiness and treasuring the moments I have because you never know when could be the last day,” she said.
Way said that fear is one she knows all too well.
“You pray there is not but, I also know what loss is so … we lost our first born at a month and 25 days old to undetermined SIDS. I sadly know that fear, that heartache too,” she said.
But that loss, she told me, is also where her strength comes from.
“I think that is what gives me the strength to just fight, and fight and fight, because I didn’t get to with him,” Way said.
For now, Mariah continues making the trip to Cincinnati Children’s, surrounded by a family determined to give her every chance possible — and a community that’s beginning to rally behind her.
Her journey, updates and ways to support the family are shared on the Team Mariah Facebook page, where loved ones and strangers alike follow along, pray and offer help.
Through cancer, kidney failure, and countless hospital visits, Mariah remains what her mom says she has always been — a happy baby.
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