On December 31st, Harper’s mom, Liz, had to be at work by 7am and Harper was sound asleep in her bed. Usually Harper wakes up by 8am, but Harper’s dad, Dave, had a gut feeling to go into her room a little earlier to check on her, and found her unconscious and not breathing.

Life saving measures were taken and she was airlifted to a hospital in Tampa. She was intubated for 10 days and in a Pentatbarb coma. During her intubation, we celebrated her second birthday on January 8th. When Harper woke up the day after her birthday, she woke up smiling and giggling. A genetic doctor came in to tell us that Harper was diagnosed with POLG mitochondrial disorder.

We knew the she could be on the worst end of the spectrum, but we were hoping she would stay on the mild end. She worked very hard with her therapies to get back to baseline. When we left the hospital after 41 days, she was close to her baseline prior to the seizure and was overall doing well!

Harper was doing so well that all of her doctors were extremely impressed by her progress. Up until April 7th when Harper had her second seizure, which was a focal seizure in her right arm. She was again intubated for 10 days and in a coma. When she woke up, she didn’t have function of her right arm. We were in the hospital for a total of 56 days.

We were out of the hospital long enough to take a mini vacation in June, before another focal seizure in her right arm took place on June 30th. This time, her emergency medications worked, and she didn’t need to be intubated. We were in the hospital for 4 days for observations, but left the hospital with a constant tremor in the right arm.

We had our worst seizure on July 18th. It was a focal seizure in her left arm, left leg, and right arm. She was intubated for 19 days and in a coma. During this time she went into liver failure and we’ve been in the hospital since. Her liver still is not functioning and she has some other problems popping up here and there with this visit. Harper is a strong fighter and not giving up! Due to her liver failure during her coma, her doctors didn’t think she’d wake up again, but here she is awake and laughing with her nurses!

Harper loves puppies, Mac and Cheese, strawberries, and Word Party on Netflix! She is now 2 1/2 years old and living with liver failure. You would never know anything is wrong based on her personality. Her favorite thing to do is if you ask her to say “mama,” she smirks and says “hi dada” and starts cracking up. This has been an ongoing joke with her for the last two years since she started talking. She can say mama, but think it’s hilarious to make me mad. She has such a funny sense of humor, and has been in such good spirits through all of this! She is a favorite at the hospitals we go to (all 3) and her daycare! She can make friends anywhere she goes! Everyone that meets Harper, loves Harper!