Las Vegas boy gives Legos, brings smiles to kids at UMC

For most children, the holiday season is about opening presents. For 11-year-old Dylan Prunty, it’s about giving them to others.

Dylan, who was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease when he was 6 and has spent Christmas in the hospital before, has made it his mission to put smiles on the faces of other children who can’t be home for the holidays.

“Once I was admitted in the hospital I was in a ton of pain,” Dylan said. “I started building Legos and it helped a lot with my pain, so that’s what made me think, ‘Why not do every Christmas for other kids?’”

Dylan, whose favorite Lego themes are Star Wars, City, and Ninjago, sat in his wheelchair inside the entrance of University Medical Center on Saturday afternoon, sorting through hundreds of sets donated by his family and friends to hand-select which ones would go to which patients.

“I’m hoping it will make their Christmas better,” he said.

Mitochondrial disease is the failure of the part of the cell that converts food to energy, so some of Dylan’s organs don’t function well, his mother explained. For example, his kidneys produce a lot of kidney stones so he suffers chronic pain.

“He says that Legos are the best pain medicine,” Kapka Prunty said, watching Dylan slap bows onto the boxes of Lego sets. “Every child in the hospital is in some kind of pain, so he also thinks it will help them deal with their pain.”

Dylan and his sister, 14-year-old Cassidy, were born and raised in Las Vegas, but the family relocated to Los Angeles to be closer to doctors specializing in his condition, his mother said.

“It was Labor Day weekend of 2012 when all of a sudden he started having symptoms, we took him to the emergency room, and they were unable to help, so he was airlifted to CHLA,” Prunty said. “We ended up spending six months in the hospital, and they did not want to discharge him unless we lived within 15 minutes of the hospital, so we ended up moving.”

Dylan’s parents had to explain to him around Thanksgiving that year that they he would have to spend Christmas in the hospital.

“I was bummed,” Dylan said, clutching a husky stuffed animal. His gray shirt had “super human” written in neon green letters.

“But I got through it.”

That year, he asked his parents to help him collect Lego sets for the 360 other children in the hospital. Prunty said they didn’t think it would be possible, but friends and family stepped up to donate and they have successfully delivered Lego toys at CHLA for the last four years.

This year, since the doctors approved Dylan to visit his hometown, he decided to donate Lego sets to the kids at UMC.

A UMC employee said Dylan’s gift is meaningful to the many kids who are too sick to leave the hospital and who keep asking why they can’t go home, and whether Santa will be able to find them.

“Being able to explain that it’s from another child who has spent a Christmas in the hospital … it’ll help them see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, they won’t always be in the hospital,” said Danielle Tumolo, a 33-year-old child life specialist. “To see an 11-year-old who’s so giving of himself and so giving of himself and so in tune with other children’s needs, it’s inspiring. It gives you hope.”

Dylan said the only things he asked for this year are more Legos and to be with his family in Las Vegas.

Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com. Follow @lauxkimber on Twitter.