Published: May 31, 2011
LANSING, Mich. - Haizy Haindel is a 2-year-old who keeps her mom on her toes with lots of questions, energy, and bumps and bruises.
That's why it didn't seem like a big deal when she fell off a step in her family's Rives Junction home on a wintry night in January.
"She's fallen off that step I don't know how many times," said her mom Tiffani Waldron-Haindel.
But this time was far different. The fall set off a fast-moving chain of events that led Tiffani and husband Ryan to bring Haizy to the Sparrow Children's Center, where she underwent emergency brain surgery to remove a blood clot and relieve pressure on her brain.
Haizy's extraordinary recovery is one reason she is this year's Miracle Child for the Children's Miracle Network/Sparrow Children's Center Telethon. The 2011 Telethon airs on WILX-TV 10 from 9-11:30 a.m. on June 3 and noon-7 p.m. on June 4. Click here to see a video on the Miracle Child.
"Haizy Haindel's case is just a case of good parenting and the parents bringing a child to a facility that could take care of what was ultimately wrong with her," said Stephen Guertin, M.D., Medical Director of the Sparrow Children's Center.
Haizy's parents immediately recognized something was wrong with their daughter when she became lethargic and then began vomiting after her fall.
They drove the 25 minutes to Sparrow, where quick action by physicians in the Pediatric Emergency Room revealed that Haizy had a large area of bleeding on her brain. She was taken to Sparrow's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and a neurosurgeon was called into action.
Successful surgery was performed by 7 a.m. the next morning.
"This child was remarkable after surgery," Dr. Guertin says. "She simply became herself within hours."
Haizy's family also benefitted by coming to a children's center equipped with the round-the-clock technology and staffing critical to their daughter's case.
"There are many resources brought to bear that created the kind of outcome that we see, which is a happy, normal child," Guertin says.
Her mom can attest to that.
"You would never thought she had surgery. She is constantly running around. You can't keep her down for nothing."