Paizlee Rose Adams looks like most kids in her Grade 1 class, just a bit smaller. Looking at her now, you’d never know the smiling, energetic little six-year-old has defied the odds just by surviving.
Back in 2018, she was born four months premature and weighing less than 500 grams, or one pound, one ounce.
“Any time you think back on where she came from, it’s hard to believe she’s here. It was quite a ride,” says her mother, Emily McCardle. “To be where we are now, I feel very lucky.”
“It fills your heart with pride,” says Paizlee’s father, Andy Adams. “Just super proud of everything she overcame and the journey she was faced with upon arriving into this crazy world.”
Paizlee spent her first six months at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, the only children’s hospital in the Maritimes, where she faced surgeries and struggles with eating and gaining weight.
She was allowed to go home to Prince Edward Island with her parents after six months. But doctors were concerned that Paizlee, born only 23 weeks into her mother’s pregnancy, could still face challenges and complications as she grew up.
“They had told me that 24 weeks was the earliest she even stood a chance,” McCardle said. “And in the early days, no one really knew. Her lungs were severely, severely underdeveloped. That was the biggest concern at the time.”
In 2018, Paizlee Rose Adams was born four months premature, weighing just one pound. She defied the odds by surviving, but doctors were concerned she could face challenges and complications growing up. CBC’s Steve Bruce caught up with Paizlee and her parents to find out how she’s doing now.
Paizlee had a lot of medical appointments in her early years, bouncing among the pediatrician, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and eye doctors, her mother recounts.
“All of them honestly, one by one, started dropping off. ‘No concerns, no concerns, no concerns,'” McCardle said.
Small, quiet ‘firecracker’
Today Paizlee is small for her age with a quiet voice, the result of having one paralyzed vocal cord.
But her parents say that hasn’t held her back.
“She had to learn how to get her voice heard, or how to make herself known in a group of people when she was so small, quiet and easily overpowered,” McCardle said. “She’s figured out those things along the way.”
Paizlee now loves running and biking, and joined gymnastics this year.
“Her size, I don’t think that affects her at all,” Adams said. “She’s a little firecracker. There’s no slowing her down.”
“You can’t really keep her down,” McCardle agreed. “She’s lived life her own way right from Day One, and she’s still like that now. She lives life on her terms for sure.”
McCardle’s charming blog, The Powerful Journey of Miss Paizlee Rose, documents Paizlee’s milestones through the years. She started it as a way to keep family and friends on P.E.I. in the loop on her daughter’s progress.
The public was captivated by the little girl’s story, and there was an outpouring of support.
“That’s something we’ll all remember for the rest of our days — just the support and love we got when we were going through that tough time,” Adams said.
“The good and the bad all along the way, I think everything happened exactly as it was supposed to,” McCardle added. “I think going through all that with her made me a better mom and a better person.”
The most recent blog post shows a smiling Paizlee Rose with her Disney backpack, heading to Grade 1. Her mother writes in the little girl’s voice: “I am perfectly aligned with all my peers. None of the grownups around me have any concerns with any of my abilities. They say I am smart as a whip! Just as I told you all those years ago, I don’t let anything hold me back!”
