5-year-old marks one year waiting for new heart at children’s hospital

5-year-old marks one year waiting for new heart at children’s hospital

MINNEAPOLIS (KARE) – A 5-year-old has just spent an entire year inside Children’s Minnesota emergency room.

She’s been diagnosed with a rare heart issue and is waiting for a life-saving transplant.

But thanks to a little help — and a lot of stuffed animals — she keeps smiling in the face of adversity.

Temi Adebisi also sings, dances, and marches to her own beat.

“Temi is a beautiful soul,” Temi’s mother Toyin Adebisi said.

Her mother says that’s always been the case.

“She lights up everyone’s mood. There are no boring moments with her,” Toyin Adebisi said.

But about a year ago their little life of the party wasn’t acting like herself at a party.

“She did not participate in any of the activities because she got tired easily. She did not eat; she did not play. We did not know that she was dealing with so much damage,” Toyin Adebisi said.

That realization hit after a trip to the children’s emergency room.

“The medical word we use is dilated cardiomyopathy, and that’s really just a big heart that’s not squeezing well,” said Dr. Adam Putschoegl, transplant cardiologist at Children’s Minnesota

The team said they learned Temi would need a transplant and it soon became clear time wasn’t on their side.

“They did not know if she was going to make it the next 48 hours. That was the worst day of my life,” Toyin Adebisi said.

With medicine not working, doctors connected her heart to a ventricular assist device.

“It’s basically an artificial pump that sits outside of her body to help support her heart. If she didn’t have the device she probably wouldn’t survive,” Putschoegl said.

For weeks the reality of being tethered to a machine that can only be unplugged for 20 minutes and never leave the hospital took a different kind of toll on her heart.

“She would cry and cry, she wanted to go home. Oh my God, I couldn’t hold it anymore and I started crying with her,” Toyin Adebisi said.

That’s when the family called in backup and Temi’s care team organized special events that included a 200-day parade in her honor followed by a 5th birthday bash.

“God bless them,” Toyin Adebisi said. “It has been working sooo well.”

These days, not even Temi’s pump seems to slow her down. But nobody expected the device to still be connected to her a year later.

“We are just hoping that we get a new heart now. With God … all things are possible,” Toyin Adebisi said.

Putschoegl added, ‘We know that there is a light at the end of this tunnel and that they can get out of here and have their child back at home.”

Temi’s doctors are optimistic that a new heart could be coming within the next few months.

link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *