Houston ? On the eighth floor of Texas Children’s Hospital, behind double doors leading to the renal dialysis unit, Jasmine Davis floated through the hallway in a frothy cocktail dress of black lace and teal satin. A rhinestone tiara glittered against her soft halo of dark curls.

A few feet away, Carlos Mata shifted nervously from one foot to another, clasping a bow tie and glancing shyly at the cluster of pretty girls.

On most days, Jasmine and Carlos arrive on this floor of the Houston hospital prepared to spend several hours tethered to a dialysis machine, a process that keeps them alive but can also keep them from experiencing regular childhood rituals.

This night would be different. On this Sunday in late April, they would brush aside the necessary routine of doctors’ visits, needle pricks and dialysis machines and, for a few magical hours, get the chance to be normal, silly, giggling, dancing kids.

Jasmine, Carlos and about two dozen other young patients from the hospital’s renal services unit were going to the prom. The event organized by a small army of hospital employees, volunteers and community supporters would be a first for the hospital, and for nearly all the patients, many of whom have missed out on school dances, classmates’ parties and other commonplace social rites because of illness.

For weeks, the teenagers had imagined a night of glitter and magic. But now, just an hour before the prom, the young people primping in hospital corridors and treatment rooms were getting nervous.

“I’m ready, I guess . I don’t know,” admitted Carlos, a 15-year-old middle school student who is awaiting a kidney transplant. He glanced down at the brand-new bow tie tangled between his fingers. “This is the first time I’m doing this.”

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A few weeks earlier, Jasmine, 15, a disarmingly bright high school sophomore diagnosed with lupus in 2001, had described life on dialysis:

“Close your eyes for a minute. Think like this. You’re going to school, but no one knows what you’re going through. When you get to the hospital, you see all the kids who are sick, nurses, doctors, needles, machines beeping all the time, people rushing all the time. They put needles in your arms, and catheters in your chest. You can’t stop and say I’m not going to do this. You just think, ‘Why is this happening to me? I haven’t done anything wrong.'”

Like many of the pediatric dialysis patients at Texas Children’s Hospital, Jasmine has treatment three times a week, for three to four hours at a time. She is on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, and has had several surgeries to implant a catheter used in dialysis.

At Texas Children’s Hospital, a team of child life specialists work to help young patients cope with chronic or life-threatening illnesses. They scatter toys and games and books throughout treatment wards, and plan parties, outings and other activities designed to distract from the grim realities of medical treatment.

The prom, dubbed “Shining Stars: TCH Renal Prom 2010,” was part of that effort. More than 300 dresses in a rainbow of colors, styles and sizes were donated by hospital employees and community members. Volunteer seamstresses pitched in to alter dresses for perfect fits. Cosmetology students from San Jacinto and Lone Star College offered to apply make-up, style hair and give manicures and pedicures.

It’s all because for pediatric renal patients like Jasmine, medical treatment is only part of the picture. There are emotional and psychological concerns that separate younger patients from adults receiving dialysis.

“All the time they spend in the hospital might be in conflict with regular activities like the prom,” said Helen Currier, director of the hospital’s renal services unit. “And the kids they go to school with might not be their peers. Their peers are other children with chronic illnesses. They are different and they get treated as different.”

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A stream of young girls in dresses of emerald, lilac, silver, ruby red and sea-foam blue and a line of young men in black suits and white shirts stepped out from the charter bus and onto the red carpet.

The storm-saturated clouds of that morning had dispersed to unveil a gloriously sunny afternoon. Behind the double doors leading into the House of Dereon, pop diva Beyonce’s studio-banquet hall, strobe lights cast multicolored shadows on the walls. Silver and gold balloons bobbled above tables decorated with silver top hats and party bags filled with perfume, T-shirts, tiny Academy Award statues and other prom mementoes.

As each teenager opened the door and slipped inside the club, they were greeted with a burst of pulsating party music. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys were singing: “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, There’s nothing you can’t do.”

And in that moment, everything else – the doctors and dialysis, kidney transplant waiting lists and school days missed from sickness – seemed to fall away.

Jasmine took her place on the dance floor, swiveling her hips and cha-cha-cha-ing next to her dialysis nurse. Carlos, still clutching his bow tie, shed his shyness and unveiled slick moves that outshone even the break-dancers hired to perform at the dance. Melanie quickly bonded with another teenage transplant recipient and eagerly explored every inch of the party.

Suddenly, they were not patients. They were just kids at a prom.

“This is the most fun I’ve had in a long while,” gushed Melanie. “It’s awesome.”