(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Time and again, 5-year-old Aaliya Lopez has pulled through life-threatening medical crises, and thanks to ongoing medical support, the future she faces now is as wide open as her smile.
In her heart, Beverly Brumm knew it was not her daughter Aaliya’s time to go. The 22-month-old — who’d already survived slim odds as an infant born with a complex heart defect — lay connected to life-support machines at Mayo Clinic Hospital — Rochester. With Aaliya in a medically induced coma following a brain hemorrhage, Aaliya’s Mayo Clinic care team needed to know how Beverly wanted them to proceed.
“Everyone was talking to me about the quality of life she would have if she survived this,” Beverly says. At the time, the long-term outlook for Aaliya’s health seemed grim. But Beverly was not ready to let her daughter go. Beverly’s faith and her confidence in the healing power of medicine compelled her to direct Aaliya’s care team to maximize the girl’s odds of recovering. Today, Aaliya’s infectious smile and curious eyes validate her mother’s conviction that her long-haired, happy daughter is supposed to be here.
“It felt like everyone was putting their arms around us and giving us a great big hug,” Beverly says of how the little girl’s providers rallied around them. The compassionate care that followed amazed Beverly then, and it continues to astonish her as Aaliya, now 5, is supported through her ongoing medical issues.
Read the rest of Aaliya’s story.
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This article originally appeared on the Sharing Mayo Clinic blog.