When Plans Change

We make plans…and sometimes everything goes perfectly according to plan, and beautiful memories are made, and everyone is happy and healthy.

Other times, like this month, nothing goes according to plan.

The week before Thanksgiving we were ready to go on our annual trip out to Montana. We have made this trip every year at Thanksgiving, and it is a wonderful time for our family to rest and rejuvenate. This year we were ready to go. We were packed, plans were made, and everyone was looking forward to it.

But when we got to the airport to fly out, our Paisley felt dizzy, collapsed, and went into cardiac arrest.

We were living every heart family’s worst nightmare as we watched our daughter stop breathing, and her heart stop beating… We were in shock.

Thankfully there was someone right next to us, at the check-in counter, who stepped right in and started CPR. After two rounds of CPR, our baby came back.

EMS was there with us immediately, and she was taken to the hospital closest to the airport, Johns Hopkins, who happens to have an excellent pediatric cardiology center.

They believe she had a cardiac arrest brought on by an arrhythmia. She is in heart failure.

We are devastated for her, and reeling from the shock of watching our baby girl die in front of us!

Mostly we are just so so thankful. Thankful to have her with us. Thankful we were not on a plane. So very thankful.

Our Paisley was able to go home for Thanksgiving, and her birthday… she turned ten on Thanksgiving!

She had a heart catheterization last week, and she will have more procedures coming up very soon. Everyone’s goal is to make her safe, to prevent this from happening again, and then to rest and treat her heart failure while we decide our next steps.

She is such a gift, this girl. How lucky we are to have her!