Isla’s Story
Isla
At just 16 months old, my sweet baby girl suffered an ischemic stroke on her left side that affected her left basal ganglia mostly. After over a week before receiving our imaging, it was confirmed and we were transferred to Vanderbilt where we spent over a month then onto Children Hospital of the Kings Daughters in Norfolk VA for two weeks. We couldn’t find a cause, just an abnormal blood vessel which they didn’t know if it caused the stroke, or was cause BY the stroke.
We spent the next few months making constant improvements and receiving good reports when in October we got bad news. The area affected by Isla’s stroke has grown. Her face was back swollen, pink cheeks, we were on the verge of another stroke. They did an angiogram in December to look at that blood vessel more in depth. Isla was then diagnosed with MoyaMoya Disease stage 2 bilateral.
On January 6th, 2026 she underwent her first craniotomy with indirect bypass. We thought this was the fix. When we went back for our 8 week post op appointment, we were told Isla would need the same surgery on the right side of her head as well. This was devastating to us and hard to process. Our baby girl turned two December 13th, 2026 and has endured more in those two years than most do in their entire life. During the recovery process Isla developed staph infection in her incision sight, which led them to push back her surgery date even further, leading to a more likely chance of a stroke before we can catch it.
The heaviness of pediatric stroke in general is so much to comprehend but seeing your child so young go through this is real time has been agonizing. Currently we have an MRI date of April 16th which will assess the first bypass, if all is good then we are looking at her second surgery the first of May. Just looking to connect and reach out to others who’ve been where I stand. I’m looking for advice, guidance, open to anything. With all of that said, this little fighter can count to 10, sing her ABCs, match her colors and name them. She’s smart as a tack, SO funny, and the life of every room she walks into. There’s not a tune in the world my Isla Scott wouldn’t get down to :)
