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Four-year-old Haylee Peters of Elmore City was all smiles in this photo from a couple weeks ago after she returned home with a new heart thanks to a successful transplant operation in late May at a St. Louis, Mo., hospital. (Courtesy photo)
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A heartwarming return
When 4-year-old Haylee Peters and her family returned to their Elmore City home it was a true heartwarming experience.
It’s easy to see why since young Haylee has come home after going through a long journey that included a successful heart transplant.
“We’re so glad to be home,” said Haylee’s mother, Cristin Peters.
“She’s doing wonderful. There are no signs of rejection with the new heart,” she said.
“Hopefully this is the end of it. It’s been a crazy year.”
It has been just over a year, May 2008 to be exact, when Haylee suffered a minor seizure.
From that doctors discovered a cancerous tumor on her brain, which later led to Haylee’s life-saving need for a new heart.
When that new heart did come it was kind of a double blessing for Cristin since the operation came on May 10 — Mother’s Day.
It also served as a present for Haylee’s family and the entire Elmore City community.
“I just want to thank God and everyone for their support,” Cristin said.
“Everybody in Elmore City has supported us great. I’m not from there, my husband is, and everyone in Elmore City are really supported us,” she said referring to husband Shawn.
It was Shawn and Cristin, along with their other child, a 2-year-old, who were actually at a hospital in St. Louis, Mo., where the heart operation took place.
“We were really excited that day. It would have been a lot easier if it had worked better,” Cristin said.
What that means is Haylee experienced problems from the start as the new heart wasn’t pumping properly.
That left her in a fragile state and her life on the line with each hour being critical to her survival.
It was so dramatic Haylee spent the next three days with her chest literally left wide open as various tubes hooked to her led to bypass monitoring equipment.
“She bled profusely from her chest. She was constantly bleeding and getting transfusions,” Cristin said.
Then it all turned miraculously around, her mother said.
“Then her heart started working.”
Things went so well after that she was eventually discharged from the hospital in late May and returned home to Elmore City on June 1, where she got the chance to spend her 4th birthday with family and friends.
Haylee’s heart problems last year came after a cancerous tumor was removed from her brain. That led to several chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Last December, following one of those treatments, Haylee had an acute heart failure and was flown to St. Louis, where she was placed on a Berlin heart, a device to help with the pumping of blood in the young girl’s body.
From there Haylee and her family awaited a heart transplant as she was twice placed on the life-saving list before it happened for real on Mother’s Day.
“The Peters family would like to express a heartfelt thank you to everyone for their thoughts and prayers and financial donations during these hard times,” Cristin said.
“Now we all rejoice that Haylee’s home.”
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