The Kids We Help
Robin Borrowman (pictured above) is the mother of one and a half year old Phoenix (with Robin). We asked Robin to share Phoenix’s story with you. We hope you feel as inspired as we are.
So we would love to share Phoenix’s story. We just celebrated her 1 year new heart anniversary. What a great milestone!
Phoenix was born April 8, 2009, a healthy 9lbs 3 oz baby girl. She was bright and happy. On June 8th, when she was 8 weeks old, I took her into our local ER, suspecting an ear infection because she had been a little fussy for the past 24 hrs. The Perth ER triage nurse noticed she was taking shallow breaths, and scooped up her infant seat and ran into ER with her.
While in ER, Phoenix's heart stopped. She was revived with epinephrine and then rushed via helicopter to CHEO (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario). She was in cardiac shock and had 8% ejection fraction, which is the fraction of blood pumped out by the heart. With an x-ray it was determined that she had dilated cardiomyopathy.( We now know it was caused by a unknown virus). We were told there was no surgery to change this, that 1/3 of cases recover with medications, 1/3 require a transplant and 1/3 die before they do either.
Phoenix spent the next 2 weeks in the intensive care unit, on and off of breathing tubes and various meds. It was determined she needed to go to Toronto Sickkids to be listed for transplant.
On July 8th 2009, she was officially listed for transplant by the team at Sickkids. She remained in Cardiac Critical Care Unit, again going on and off of breathing tubes. We had to relocate to Toronto. This was a traumatic experience for all of us on top of the fact that our precious daughter was in the midst of the fight of her life.
Her brother, Isaiah, 9, was so distraught that he had constant nightmares. Her sister, Alliyah 7, missed her baby and mommy so much that she became quiet and withdrawn.
On July 22nd, Phoenix's heart stopped for 11 min. The next morning she was placed on a Berlin Heart (an artificial heart). She was the 17th case in Sickkids history to receive one. She was the smallest of all the cases. On her Berlin heart, she was able to move out of CCCU for the first time since June 8th. She was able to see her siblings again which made her smile. She regained some muscle and mobility, and even started to take small amounts of formula from a bottle.
On Aug 14th, we received the call we were waiting for, and Phoenix was taken down to the operating room for a new heart. Thanks to the amazing research done at Sickkids related to the fact that infants do not have the anti-bodies to fight off foreign blood, Phoenix was able to receive a heart that was an incompatible blood type, thus shortening her life threatening wait. Within 2 weeks she went home from the hospital.
With the help of her loving siblings she quickly caught up to her milestones and took her first steps at 10 months old. She has had zero rejection of her new heart, is on minimum meds and has had little complication. Today, she is a big, healthy toddler that loves to talk, talk, talk, run, climb and explore.
We are so thankful to the amazing teams of doctors and nurses at CHEO and Sick Kids. We are so grateful that the David Foster Foundation was there to help us stay together as a family during the most terrifying time of our lives.
The David Foster Foundation is dedicated to helping families with non medical expenses during their child’s life saving organ transplant. To make a donation to help families like Phoenix's, go to our home page and click on Donate!