SICKKIDS PERFORMS 60% OF PAEDIATRIC HEART TRANSPLANTS IN CANADA. PEYTON RECEIVED ONE OF THEM.
Peyton Calder, 10 Fort Frances, Ont.
In the spring of 2015, Bob Calder and Tanya Jones noticed that their four-year-old daughter, Peyton, was unusually exhausted. And even more worrisome, she was complaining that her chest hurt.
Peyton was airlifted from their home in Fort Frances, a town in northwestern Ontario, to Winnipeg, 450 kilometres away and the site of the closest hospital offering specialized paediatric care. Peyton was quickly diagnosed with myocarditis, severe inflammation of the heart muscle, which can significantly weaken its pumping ability. Peyton was stabilized, treated and eventually sent home with medication to suppress the inflammation. Every few weeks, the family would drive four hours to Winnipeg for follow-up appointments.
The medication helped; within eight months, Peyton’s heart function recovered. But two months after finishing treatment, she fell ill again with what initially appeared to be the flu. Very quickly, she became so weak she couldn’t stand. She was immediately referred to The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)—at the time, it was Canada’s only paediatric hospital with a critical care unit specifically for cardiac patients.
Within Toronto, hours Peyton of being suffered airlifted a cardiac to arrest and stroke. The cardiac team at the Labatt Family Heart Centre managed to stabilize her, but her heart was damaged beyond repair. She was put on the hearttransplant list. In the meantime, she subsisted on a Berlin Heart, a mechanical pump implanted partially into her chest to do the work of her damaged heart.
During this strange and scary time, Peyton remained an active and busy kid. She loved visits from the hospital’s Child Life Specialist and was always up for playing. When she was strong enough, she amazed her care team by riding her tricycle up and down the halls as the Berlin Heart machine was wheeled behind her.
During regular sessions in the hospital’s physiotherapy gym, Peyton slowly regained strength and movement on the side of her body that had been paralyzed by the stroke. Her parents were reassured by these physical gains, but the need for a new heart weighed heavily.
Each year in Canada, some 50 kids are on a waitlist for a new heart, and roughly 30 to 35 will get one. As a world-leading children’s cardiac centre, SickKids performs 60 per cent of paediatric heart transplants in Canada.
After several months, Peyton’s family got the call: A heart was available. From that moment, things happened quickly, then slowly. The transplant surgery was successful, and then Peyton began the long recovery process. After several months of rehab, she finally returned to Fort Frances, to her family, to all that she’d missed. She couldn’t wait to go fishing again. Families across the province—and country—rely on SickKids for this level of highly specialized paediatric care. Though SickKids is a world-leading children’s hospital, you might not know it to see the clinical areas. There are 25-yearold operating rooms; critical care units where families are five to a room; an emergency department that’s often over-capacity and in need of modern infection-control design. That’s why we need to build a new SickKids.
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