Madison Roberts

Madison Patricia Roberts ( Maddy) was born June 17th, 2006 in Minneapolis Children’s hospital. Maddy was born with Charge syndrome which is a gene disorder, that affected her eyes, nose, heart, and her stomach.We all knew as her family that she should be returning to the hospital one day to have open heart surgery for her leaking heart valve. I think we were all preparing for that outcome versus the one we were surprised with. But, despite Maddy’s medical history she was one of the strongest people I ever knew, for years she had grown stronger since her birth and was acting just like a healthy child the only thing that people could see that was different with her was that she was half blind and half deaf. But, despite how healthy Maddy seemed, she was not immune to catching a bacteria. On the last week of December of 2017, Maddy was showing signs of cold/flu like symptoms. She was still talking and walking but she was very tired, and did not eat much of anything. When she returned from spending the new years with her dad, Maddy was moaning and whining a lot. The following next days Maddy became less and less coherent, she could not walk, could not talk, or even open her eyes for a long period of time by the time we took her to the St.Cloud Hospital ER. That entire day, January 5th, Maddy was in the St.Cloud Hospital. At the hospital Maddy was given antibiotics and fluid, and when they realized that wasn’t doing much of anything for Maddy they decided to try and stabilize her to airlift her to the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.  Before the helicopter landed, Maddy’s heart had stopped, but they were able to resuscitate her. All of her family and loved ones who were able to, drove down to the cities for Maddy. When her family reached the hospital were they weren’t given much hope with Maddy’s situation. All of this took everyone by surprise. Maddy was given two choices by the doctors at the Children's hospital. She could continue with the method that St.Cloud was doing, or she could try and get hooked up to a ecmo machine to try and by her some time while we wait for the antibiotics to stay in her system. The machine is very risky and we knew there was a high chance we would lose Maddy during the procedure. But we decided to use our last hope. The procedure is about an hour long, but because of Maddy’s past the procedure took about three hours. Maddy was hooked up fine and for the most part stabilized it seemed. On Sunday January 7th, Maddy was diagnosed as brain dead. All of her family that could come, came to say goodbye to their crazy little girl. This entire situation has thrown everyone who was close to maddy for a loop. The family takes pride in being strong and independent, but anything literally helps even if its prayers and thoughts. We are so grateful and heartbroken for Maddy. And I ( big sister) wish the world could have gotten the chance to meet her.