By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

In many ways, Elise Randall, 7, is like any other girl her age.

Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. She loves her cat. She thinks the best parts of school are art and music classes. Today, like most of her friends, she will eat too much turkey and spend time with her family.

But the things for which Elise is thankful this year make her different.

She’s thankful that she can finally play soccer after having to sit out of all competitive sports for the past few years. She’s thankful that she no longer has to wear a Holter monitor every day to track her heartbeat. And Elise is especially thankful for the zipper scar that stretches from the bottom of her neck all the way down her chest.

“I couldn’t even pick up my cat, Midnight,” Elise said. “It felt not good. It was scary.”

“She’s tough,” Candice Randall, 34, said of her daughter.

Hole in her heart

It was small, but it was there. Candice strained to see the abnormality the nurse was pointing out in the ultrasound. There was something wrong with her baby.

Doctors told Candice that her daughter either had a hole in her heart or Down syndrome. At 26 years old, the idea of being the single mother of a sick newborn was terrifying.

But, Candice was determined to keep the baby.

“I had the option of let her go with Down and a heart condition, give her away or watch her die,” Candice said.

Specialists in St. Louis later diagnosed the problem as tetralogy of Fallot with absence of pulmonic valve. Elise did not have Down syndrome, but she did have a combination of several congenital heart defects. Elise’s form of the disease was especially rare because one of her heart valves did not develop.

The result was that Elise was not getting enough blood or oxygen to the rest of her body. The oxygen deprivation can be so severe that the child’s extremities turn blue, causing a condition called Blue Baby Syndrome.