It’s a whole new ballgame

Every once in a while, you get to see a happy ending. But if you are really lucky, you get to witness a miraculous, new beginning.

I was standing on the sidelines watching my daughter's scrimmage and exchanging soccer mom small talk with the woman next to me. Though I didn't recognize her, the conversation flowed with a curious familiarity. Eventually we decided to introduce ourselves.

As soon as she said, "Hi, I'm Dianne McPharlin," I realized that we had indeed spoken before, not in person, but over the phone.

The last time I talked to Dianne she was calling from the intensive care unit of Children's Hospital of Michigan. I was writing a story for this newspaper about her 12-year-old daughter Sarah, who was awaiting a heart transplant.

On July 17, 2001, Sarah collapsed in the Grosse Pointe Woods Lakefront Park pool due to an irregular heartbeat. The bright, athletic sixth-grader was diagnosed with myocarditis, a rare and sometimes fatal heart infection. In one month alone, her heart stopped beating five times.

Throughout the fall and winter, friends and strangers alike rallied around the McPharlins in a way that truly defined the warm, familial, small town spirit of Grosse Pointe. Leading the way with encouragement, donations and prayers were the players and parents from Sarah's Grosse Pointe Soccer Association U-12 Travel Dragons team.

Parishioners from Our Lady Queen of Peace, along with faculty and families from Monteith, Elementary School, Brownell Middle School, Grosse Pointe North High School and the Casali School of Dance echoed their efforts. Neighbors also

pitched in to make sure that the Sarah's sisters, Emily and Katie, were cared for while their mom and dad maintained a vigil at the hospital.

Sarah's condition deteriorated rapidly. Though the fact that she became the first child in  Michigan to receive a  Thoratec Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) in September bought a finite amount of time, her urgent need for a heart transplant prompted Jim and Dianne, along with the team from Children's Hospital, to hold a press conference stressing the importance of organ donations.

On Monday, Oct. 22, a family that the McPharlins never met had the courage, grace and wisdom to see beyond their own grief and give Sarah a future.

I remember being relieved and thrilled to be able write about the successful heart transplant.  However, this "happy ending" was tempered by the realization that she still faced a long and arduous road to recovery.

When I reminded Dianne of our brief history and asked how Sarah was doing, I was almost afraid of her answer. I knew that she had returned to school on a limited basis in April, but I had also heard that she suffered considerable setbacks.

That is why Dianne literally took my breath away when she pointed to the net and said cheerfully, 'That's Sarah, in goal."

It was obvious that something had drawn Dianne to the field that hot, dusty, August evening. However, it honestly never occurred to me that just over 10 months after receiving a new heart, Sarah would be back in the game with her doctors' blessings.

To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. Seeing her out on the field, playing with her teammates in the glow of the late summer sun made me want to burst out in simultaneous tears and cheers.

Dianne filled me in on what had happened to Sarah after leaving the hospital.

She talked about problems with her medication and the long hours of intense physical and emotional therapy she had endured.

She told how Sarah had to learn to adjust to the strange rhythms of the pacemaker that kept her new heart beating, especially when she exercised.

She spoke of how Sarah was meeting the challenge of defining herself within the new perspective this life or death experience had forced upon her. At an age when most middle school kids invest exorbitant amounts of energy into having fun and fitting seamlessly into the crowd, Sarah was singled out through a tragic twist of fate and introduced to harsh realities that most adults would be ill-prepared to cope with.

Dianne expressed how thankful the family is for all the support they had received, and explained that contributions to a special program at the Neighborhood Club provided the personal trainer and exercise equipment that made Sarah's return to soccer possible.

She also related how the entire family was working together to rebuild a "normal" existence and that Sarah wanted nothing more then to blend back into her old world.

As for the decision Dianne and her husband made to overcome the pain and fear of the past 12 harrowing months and allow their daughter to play, Dianne said simply, "What did we save Sarah for if not to live a full life and do the things she loved?"

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