TYLER, Texas — The Children's Miracle Network named the 2025 Miracle Child who will also light the tree at the Rose City Christmas Parade in Tyler.
Nine-year-old Luna Cruz lights up any room she walks into today, but two years ago, her parents saw her light fading.
“She was sick for a couple years. She caught every bug that came through. And we questioned all the time why she got sick so often,” her mother Chelsey Clair said.
Luna's parents say they'd go to the doctor and just get sent home with antibiotics.
“She would kind of come back, and we would think we were over it. Within two weeks, she was probably sick again,” her father Jeramy Cruz said.
But in March 2023, things with Luna took a turn after the family moved to East Texas.
“I remember I was always sick all the time, and usually, I slept a lot,” Luna said.
At first, she was sleeping 12 hours and then she was asleep almost all day.
“I would feed her chicken soup, and she would kind of pick up a little bit, which were the carbs in the chicken soup. We didn't know it at the time, but then after it wore off, she would decline pretty fast again," Jeramy Cruz said.
Her parents rushed her to a Christus Health emergency care center in Lindale, where they ran tests.
"And they came back let us know that our daughter's blood sugar was well over 600," Clair said.
Doctors discovered Luna was in diabetic ketoacidosis, which can be deadly. She was rushed to Christus Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler so they could stabilize her blood sugar.
"We weren't ready for our whole lives to just be flipped upside down. It was scary," Clair said.
Her parents didn't know it could take her life.
"Left untreated if we would have waited, she could have been in serious trouble," they said.
Those were scary moments for Luna and her parents, but hey were thankful for the care and guidance from Dr. Adelina Meadows, a pediatric endocrinologist, and her team, who helped educate them on Luna's diabetes.
"It's multiple injections a day. It's a life change for not just her, but for her brother, for our family. It's never the same, never the same. It's like playing chess," Clair said. "And as soon as you think that you know exactly what you're doing, diabetes says, 'nah, not today.'"
Luna has her light back, and she doesn't let diabetes slow her down. She's a cheerleader, volleyball player and a gymnast. And in the summer she gets to be a kid with other diabetics just like her.
"The camp is named camp 903 D. I really like going into, like the water slides and the water playground," Luna said.
It's a diabetes camp made possible by the Children's Miracle Network, and it means so much to this year's Miracle Child, who continues to inspire her family.
"She's motivating to see somebody so young, be so fearless, hard working," Jeramy Cruz said.
Clair added that it's shown them that they can do anything.
"We've realized that if a 7,8, 9-year-old girl can handle everything that she handles with grace, there's no reason that we can't handle the obstacles that are put in front of us," Clair said.
Luna and the way she handles her diabetes diagnosis has made her family members all stronger.
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