Paisley's Story

Hello, my name is Whitney Hernandez and I am the mom and caregiver to Paisley. Her father, Travis, and I were so excited to be having a sweet baby girl! I had a seemingly normal pregnancy. All of my scans were normal and there were no red flags.

Paisley was born at 11:54 pm on June 14, 2010 at 37 weeks, in Hobbs, NM. The following morning, she turned blue while crying. At this point they had already found a heart murmur but hadn’t told us. They put her on oxygen in the nursery until they finally decided to airlift her to Lubbock. She was admitted into UMC NICU June 15th.

By the time Travis and I got to Lubbock, they already had a diagnosis and plan of action. The news knocked the air out of us. Tetralogy of Fallot… it sounded foreign but so scary. And we were so scared and knew our sweet baby was fighting for her life. Paisley had her own version of tetralogy. She had ventricular septal defect as well as multiple holes in her heart, and her heart was centered in her chest. They told us she would spend at least the first year of her life in the hospital and have multiple surgeries throughout her life. And she would be lucky to live past her 3rd birthday.

We couldn’t touch her for the first couple of days so that we didn’t overstimulate her. It was so hard to not be able to hold and love on her or be able to nurse her. But she wasn’t strong enough. Her blood oxygen kept dropping very low. After 1 week they transferred her to Covenant NICU to have open heart surgery. Once we were there, the physicians did not feel comfortable performing that in depth of a surgery at her small 6 lbs. We stayed in NICU another week and were released to go home on multiple medications and a heart monitor.
We traveled to Lubbock 3 times a week for echocardiograms. At 1 month old, she had a heart cath done to widen a constricted valve that was restricting blood flow. It was successful. We continued to travel 2-3 times a week for the next 6.5 months. She was finally scheduled for open heart repair at Children’s Dallas, February 2011.

Despite Paisley’s diagnosis, she was beating the odds. The doctors couldn’t explain it… but we could! There were people around the globe praying for Paisley! It was the most incredible thing to experience. The Lord provided in so many different ways.

February 14th, we left for Sweetwater to stay with my grandparents and break the trip up a little for Paisley. While there, we received a call from the hospital. Our surgeon had an emergency and had to leave the country. We could either cancel or pick a name off of a list. We prayed, called our cardiologist and waited. He called us back and told us he had an amazing cardiologist friend in Dallas and he recommended Dr. Kristine Guleserian. She was the head of the pediatric heart transplant team at Children’s. We trusted their judgement and confirmed the surgery. The next day we made it to Dallas and began pre-op procedures. We got to meet Dr. G, and she was amazing. Turns out this hiccup was 1000% a God thing. We found out that Dr. G became a cardiologist because her little brother was born with Tetralogy of Fallot! The exact diagnosis we were battling. It just all fell into place. Our original surgeon was a top surgeon. However, he planned to replace all of Paisley’s valves which would’ve required additional valve replacements every 5-10 years because they don’t grow. Dr. G ended up saving all of Paisley’s valves. She also did a more minimally invasive procedure. Paisley’s incision should’ve stretched from the very top of her sternum to about an inch above her belly button. Instead, it is only the length of her sternum. We later found out that Dr. G was one of the top 15 women surgeons in the nation and 1 of 3 who did the smaller incision.

Her surgery lasted around 6 hours and was fully successful. She should never need another surgery in her life. Her cardiologist is amazed every single year at how good her repairs were done and how strong they are. She is now 14 and has no restrictions and no medications. We monitor her with annual checkups and she is doing amazing.
In 2020, we did find out that she had pretty significant scoliosis which we later found out is tied very closely to TOF. We did everything we could to help her, from chiropractor visits to braces but it didn’t help. Her curve was at a place where it was going to begin to affect her heart and other organs. She endured a 10-hour surgery in the height of COVID restrictions in 2021. She was just released earlier this year to resume normal activities. She has 2 titanium rods and 26 screws in her spine.

To say her life has been hard would be an understatement. But if you can’t see God’s love and grace shining over her life, then I’m not sure what you’re looking at. He has been so incredibly faithful. We never take a single minute for granted with her. We sell Team Paisley shirts every year to celebrate her heartiversary and raise money to donate toward CHD and heart driven nonprofits. We are so grateful for God’s divine appointments in her life. But we also know that CHD has no cure and that surgery is just a band aid. We will continue to monitor her for the remainder of her life and fight for a cure for all CHD families.