Four months later, on June 6th, During lunch with a friend I noticed Sadie's lips had a blue tint to them and she seemed very sleepy. I went home to check her oxygen saturation levels on our pulse oximeter and the reading was 69% (Her normal is 75-85% ) I immediately took her to see our local pediatrician to confirm the reading because I thought my equipment at home might not be as accurate as a doctor's. It was. I knew she was in trouble and turned to my doctor for help. Unfortunately, instead of sending us to the hospital by ambulance or Helicopter as we later found out should have happened, she told me to go home and call the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles to see what I should do. I drove home, called the hospital and spoke to the cardiology department. They told me to bring her into emergency right away and to notify them as soon as I had arrived so they could have her heart specialists notified. It was Friday afternoon around 4pm and I knew that to drive in to Los Angeles at this time of day could take at least 2 hours or more. My husband and my oldest daughter had just flown home to Nova Scotia for a family anniversary celebration a few days earlier and I was on my own. I started to panic when I realized that Sadie had to get to Los Angeles and that I had to drive her by myself. We lived 60 miles away from CHLA. I ran out the door, got her settled into her car seat and as I looked down at her pale, sweet face I started reverently praying. I asked God to protect Sadie and to help me to stay calm. I asked Him to clear the freeway of all traffic and to deliver us to the hospital quickly. I asked Him to hold our hands and to stay with me throughout the drive. I spoke with God for an hour. Miraculously, that was the time it took to drive door to door to the emergency department. On the average Friday afternoon it should have taken at least 2 hours or more. During the drive I felt a sense of peace and calmness that was unexplainable. He led the way, His Divine intervention is the only reason we made it to the hospital. A few minutes after we arrived, Sadie started to crash and her oxygen levels bottomed out. Even though the Emergency team was first rate, I wanted to have Sadie's regular team of doctors made aware that she was there. I called Dr. Wells who was on rounds that night and the Cardio doctors and Fellows immediately came into the ER to look after Sadie. At one point there were at least 8 nurses and doctors in the room-many I recognized from her first surgery. The nurses couldn't get an IV line into Sadies's veins and she was screaming so loudly that she could hardly breathe. I was terrified and started crying. I remember one of the nurses told me to get control of myself because Sadie needed me to be strong for her. I started praying again and held onto her hands. Her big blue eyes staring up at me were searching for answers. I kept telling her that Mommy was here and that her Angels were with her and to hang on. A few seconds later the nurse was able to get the IV line in, a shot of morphine was given to calm her and her oxygen levels were slowly coming back up. As she regained some color and her breathing steadied I felt God's presence very strongly and as I looked at my sweet little child I knew that she had been spared. My husband flew home the next day with our daughter and joined me at the hospital that afternoon. After a few nights in CTICU Sadie had a catheterization, which is a process of sending a thin flexible tube into a vein or artery and guiding through the heart chambers and surrounding vessels to determine why her oxygen levels were so low and to see if there were any complications going on. The results showed a clogged shunt and this explained why she crashed so severely in ER four nights earlier.

My husband and I were up all night sitting beside Sadie trying to comfort her as her saturation levels kept dropping every time she woke up. The next morning, at the exact time that we were trying to convince her doctors that she could not wait for surgery any longer, Sadie's oxygen levels began to drop so low that the doctors called a Code Blue emergency and in the few seconds it took the Rapid Response Team to arrive I started praying (actually demanding) - very loudly- for God to send down one thousand angels to protect Sadie. I knelt down beside her bed and held her hands as my husband prayed his heart out. We watched as a team of doctors worked over her. As she struggled to hold on to her precious life I yelled even louder for God to send down His angels to help her. He answered our prayers as she regained oxygen and came back to us. In this moment I knew that her guardian angels were with her and I knew they wrapped their arms around our little girl and helped the doctors to save her life. We praise God for protecting our little girl. His hand was on everything that day- for sending Dr. Takao into her room at the exact moment before she started having problems breathing, for Dr. Bergman who was in the room next door and came running back to work on her and whose calm, confident manner amidst pure chaos saved Sadie's life, for the nurses who did an outstanding job, for the Rapid response team's ability to clear her room and get her heart going again and for the team in the CTICU who quickly stabilized Sadie. God's presence was powerful that day and we praise Him with all of heart and soul. In this moment came clarity. Sadie's life represents hope and faith and courage. We praise God everyday for His mercy and know that Sadie was surrounded by Angels from Heaven that day in her hospital room as well as by her angels on earth in the form of the nurses, doctors and surgeons that saved her life.

After a heart wrenching morning- one we will never be able to forget- she was taken down to the Cardio Thoracic Intensive Care (CTICU) to await surgery the next morning with Dr. Starnes who agreed to change his schedule to operate immediately. The procedure is called a GLEN and we had expected Sadie would not need this until she was at least 6 months of age, so at four months this was early but we realized long ago that Sadie is on her own schedule and that we are just along for the roller coaster ride. The morning of any surgery is so scary for the parents, and as we prepared Sadie to go down to surgery, one of the CTICU nurses said with a smile, "this is a great day- Sadie gets her Glen today." That gave us such a positive perspective and we realized that we should be so grateful that her heart can be made well again. The surgery went very well and Sadie recovered quickly.

On June 16th, 4 days after her surgery, Sadie was cleared to go home!