Meet Alexis

Alexis has been a Phoenix Children’s patient almost her entire life. She has had a long, complex medical journey with many twists and turns that she continues to navigate to this day. Starting around her first birthday, she had frequent visits to the emergency department for upper respiratory infections and gastrointestinal issues. Just before her second birthday, she was diagnosed with several gastrointestinal conditions and failure to thrive after a long stay at Phoenix Children's.

Over the following years, she went through a process of trial and error with many different medications, tests, procedures and alternative treatments, all while continuing to have frequent emergency department visits and hospital admissions. She was unable to attend preschool because her immune system was weak and she got sick a lot. When she was about 3 years old, she was diagnosed with asthma. 

Dr. Dana Williams, her gastroenterologist at Phoenix Children's, suggested that Alexis try gymnastics to strengthen her muscles, so she began taking gymnastics classes with Arizona Sunrays. Not long after that, she started dance classes, too.  

Despite her health issues, Alexis was “a high-energy kid,” says her mom, Briana. “Even sick, she was a ball of energy.” The Child Life program, which is funded entirely by donations, was a huge piece of the family’s Phoenix Children’s experience, helping keep Alexis busy and entertained during her visits. Child Life also was instrumental in helping put her at ease while she underwent numerous procedures and tests. 

Alexis also found comfort in visits from therapy dogs as part of the Animal-Assisted Therapy Program, another donation-funded program. “They would just light up her world,” Briana says.

As Alexis got older, her hospital stays became less frequent. With a lot of help from her care team, she learned to better manage her symptoms, but then she began experiencing numerous orthopedic injuries and joint pain. At the time, her family attributed it to gymnastics and dance. Over the years, Alexis has had an ankle fracture, a Seymour fracture in her big toe (a rare type of fracture that involves the nailbed), a concussion and many other injuries. She had an unexpectedly long recovery from the concussion, and she now deals with chronic migraines and insomnia as long-term side effects.

Within the last year, Alexis’s care team started putting together the pieces of her extensive medical history. She was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome (hEDS), a connective tissue disorder. Many of Alexis’s seemingly random symptoms were able to be explained as part of her hEDS diagnosis. She and her family are still learning about the hEDS diagnosis, but it has helped them see her medical history in a new light.

Even though she faces many challenging health issues, Alexis is an active and involved teenager. She continues to compete in gymnastics and participates in recreational dance as well. On top of her busy schedule, she does modeling and has appeared on billboards, in ads and in fashion shows. She also sees a future in the medical field, helping kids just like her. “Balancing everything is a rollercoaster,” she says. 

Alexis's parents, Briana and Matt, say that their message to other parents is that their children will get the best care at Phoenix Children’s. “Have comfort in knowing your child will be taken care of,” Briana says. Briana and Matt believe that Alexis’s care over the years has contributed to her success, saying, “She is defying the odds right now. Her successes in life … we thank Phoenix Children’s for a lot of that.”