Miracle grows each day
Published: May 29, 2005
Only minutes after she was born, Gabrielle Maxey was already fighting for her life.”Shortly after birth, she turned blue,” said Michelyn Maxey, Gabrielle’s mother.
Michelyn recalled waiting that night in September 2002 to hear an update about her little girl, who had been born around 8:30 p.m. At midnight, nurses came to her room.
“When the nurses came in without her, I knew something was wrong,” Maxey said.
By 6 a.m. the next day, paramedics had rushed the infant from the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital to the University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina’s Children’s Hospital, part of Pitt County Memorial Hospital. There, doctors discovered that two of the valves in her heart were too small, conditions called tricuspid and pulmonary atresia.
Against the wishes of her doctors, Michelyn, 35, and her husband, Demetrius, 37, followed the ambulance all the way to Greenville.
Five days later, Gabrielle underwent the first of three heart surgeries to correct the condition. Over the next 18 months, Gabrielle would receive two more surgeries to redirect blood flow to her heart and lungs.
Gabrielle, her parents and her sister, Danielle, 4, and brother, Andrew, 8, would become a familiar sight at the hospital.
These days, Gabrielle doesn’t visit Greenville often. She’s too busy running and playing, and babbling away - just like any other 2-year-old.
“She looks like a normal, healthy child,” Michelyn said. “People are amazed when we tell them that she’s had three open-heart surgeries.”
But next weekend, Gabrielle will make a trip back to the Children’s Hospital, not as a patient but as this year’s Eastern North Carolina Children’s Miracle Network poster child.
For the past 20 years, clinical professionals at the Children’s Hospital have picked five “miracle children” from the 7,300 kids they treat each year. Of the five “miracle children,” Gabrielle was chosen to have her bright grin featured on 3,000 posters.
“The posters go to national sponsors â?¦ as well as local businesses and contributors who provide donations,” said Rhonda James, Children’s Miracle Network coordinator at the hospital.
Gabrielle will be featured also on the 20th annual Children’s Miracle Network celebration shown on TV station WITN-7. The program airs from 9 p.m. June 4 until 6:30 p.m. June 5.
This year, organizers hope to top last year’s $1.25 million in contributions. Proceeds benefit programs and services at the Children’s Hospital and pediatric programs in 29 counties.
With the help of the doctors and staff at the hospital, Gabrielle and her family were able to get through the ordeal. When the hospital asked for Gabrielle to be the poster child, the Maxeys didn’t hesitate to say “yes.”
“We decided to do it because we thought it was such a good cause,” Michelyn said.
Gabrielle, however, may still be too young to comprehend her act of philanthropy.
“I don’t know if she’s aware of the big deal,” Michelyn said. “I don’t think she really can grasp the importance of it.”
See also: Reliving a child’s miracle
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