Three-year-old Dylan Woodley had been an energetic, cheeky toddler who refused to sit still or focus. He’d been a handful to manage, but now his parents wish more that they could have their rambunctious son back.
On November 18, 2015, Dylan choked on a piece of his ham sandwich. His mom, Ally, tried her best to help him get the food dislodged – but to no avail.
Dylan went into cardiac arrest and Ally immediately began to administer CPR as the called for an ambulance.
The parademics were able to vacuum out the food blocking Dylan’s throat and air lifted him to the hospital for treatment as Ally followed in a police car.
Unfortunately, by the time Dylan arrived at the hospital, his brain had already suffered from 45 minutes of oxygen deprivation. Every part of his brain had been affected and his doctors had no choice but to diagnose Dylan with global cerebral hypoxia, severe brain damage, and quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
While Dylan was once unable to sit still, he now can do nothing but that.
Now four years old, Dylan can only smile and blink at things to communicate. “He can’t do much for himself,” Ally explained, “but he’s still there – the cheeky Dylan we had this time last year.”
Although Ally and her husband are preparing to have the house renovated to best accommodate Dylan’s new physical limitations, she continues to wonder if things could have turned out any differently.
“I still think was there something more I could have done that day? That's something that will always be there,” she confessed.
But Ally doesn’t let her perpetual “what if” questions, get the best of her. “People say to me they don't know how I do it, but you don't know what you can do until you have to just have to,” she explained. “It has been hard but seeing his face and him fighting every day – that's keep me going.”
If you can help out, the Woodley family is currently raising money to help pay for Dylan’s ongoing medical bills.
