After being hospitalized for 45 days due to a rare lung disease, two-year-old Isabel Haifley, died while waiting for lung transplant. Her parents are now reaching out to other families who are going through a similar situation.
Haifley's mother, Kendra Haifley, said in a statement that their daughter's death "was truly a shock" and "hard to grasp." Isabel had an undiagnosed interstitial lung disease that she had been fighting for the past several months. Doctors, health workers in the hospital, and people in their community called her the "warrior Princess" because of how brave she was in facing such difficult circumstances. Because there was potentially no information about the disease that she had, Isabel's mother said that, "she perplexed the doctors the whole time, nobody knew what she had, we did every test there is out there."
Isabel spent 45 days in the intensive care unit of the Omaha Children's Hospital. She was sedated most of the time and she was hooked up to a heart catheter and a breathing device. Kendra said that, "even when they had her sedated she would be mouthing I love you mommy, I love you daddy, I love you brother." The death of the toddler has been very hard on the family. They say they have been trying to stay positive about the situation, but that her passing has not been easy. "It's hard to accept that I'm not able to run upstairs, wake her up from her nap, or hear her laughing," Her father, Damon Haifley said.
An event was organized last Saturday in memory of Isabel where her friends and family sought to raise money to help settle her medical expenses. The event was able to raise $15,000 in donations, but the Haifleys say that not all the money will be used to pay medical bills as a portion will be used to launch that Warrior Princess Foundation that they are putting up in honor of Isabel.