A family holiday took a scary turn after a toddler suffered a life-threatening brain haemorrhage in Mexico.
Natasha Sargeant and Liam Millen’s family trip to tropical paradise Cancun turned into every parent’s worst nightmare when 19-month-old Sienna-Rose suddenly collapsed earlier this week.
Just moments before, the happy tot was playing with her two older brothers Harry, 13, and Liam, 11.
The family, from Croxteth near Liverpool, rushed to a Cancun hospital with the little girl where she had life-saving surgery following the bleed and swelling on her brain.
Natasha, 31, said she doesn’t have ‘any words to describe what we have been through – it’s been absolutely horrific.’
Sienna-Rose didn’t receive treatment straight away as the first hospital asked the family for £4,000 up front for a CT scan and an overnight stay, Liverpool Echo reported.
At a second hospital, the CT scan was broken, so they continued to a third hospital where medics found a blood clot. At this point, Sienna-Rose had thrown up ‘about 50 times,’ mum Natasha said.
‘I was beside myself – I was begging the surgeon to save her life. He said he did this surgery all the time. His assistant said he was the best neurosurgeon in the country and if she didn’t have the surgery she would die,’ she recalled.
‘It’s been absolutely horrendous. She is the most happy, lovely little baby. To see her like this is absolutely horrendous. I would never wish what we are going through on anyone.’
After a gruelling three-and-a-half hour surgery to remove the blood clot, the doctors described her as ‘a ticking timebomb’ as the blood clot had been hidden in her brain for months.
But Sienna-Rose’s battle is far from over yet.
Her next steps will ‘depend on how she responds to see if there is any lasting damage’ to her brain, Natasha explained, and said that Sienna-Rose is kept sedated most of the time.
The hospital, which lacks air conditioning, doesn’t have paracetamol, so the parents have taken turns to get it, Natasha told the outlet.
The family wants to come home urgently, but they were told a medical flight would cost £45,000, which they don’t have, Natash said.
Now, her sister in law Amy McFadden has set up a GoFundMe campaign to cover medication and the specialist flight to bring little Sienna-Rose home.
Amy said: ‘As far as we know, we don’t know how long it will take for Sienna to recover, when she will be fit to fly home, how long they will be out there for, thousand of miles away from home and weather or not Sienna will have any lasting brain damage.’
Natasha continued: ‘I can’t describe the feeling over the past three days. It’s been the worst days of our lives. The hardest thing is not knowing. What do we do?
‘We are putting all our trust in the doctors to save Sienna. It feels so lonely. We were supposed to be making memories with the family – it’s absolutely heartbreaking.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
