NEED TO KNOW
- Rob Floyd opens up in an unique interview with ipromiseyoumedia about his daughter Indigo being identified with stage 4 of a uncommon, incurable mind illness known as Moyamoya at age 3
- “It didn’t make any sense. It was the very last thing we anticipated,” the Bar Rescue star and movie star mixologist says
- Rob provides that the expertise has opened his coronary heart in shocking new methods, as he and his household navigate their new regular
In 2017, life couldn’t have been higher for movie star mixologist Rob Floyd.
The previous actor — who had switched careers within the mid-2000s to begin creating cocktails at movie star sizzling spots like Bar Marmont in Los Angeles — had simply wrapped season 5 of the favored collection Bar Rescue and signed a partnership take care of Princess Cruise Traces, the place he curates their cocktails.
Life at house was thriving too. Rob, 57, and spouse Megan, 43, a former inside designer, have been elevating their two daughters, Ella, then 6, and Indigo, then 3. (Rob additionally has two older sons from a earlier marriage.)
That each one modified one afternoon, when Indigo out of the blue collapsed within the kiddie pool and couldn’t transfer the precise aspect of her physique.
“We thought possibly she’d been bit by a snake,” Megan remembers of the horrifying day in an unique interview with ipromiseyoumedia.
A visit to the ER and a subsequent MRI revealed one thing far worse — the couple’s little lady had suffered a stroke. After additional testing, docs instructed her shocked dad and mom that their daughter had been identified with stage 4 of a uncommon, incurable mind illness known as Moyamoya.
Affecting only one in 1 million individuals within the U.S., the illness causes a narrowing or blockage of the main carotid arteries, impacting blood provide to the mind and resulting in elevated danger of strokes, seizures and different mind issues.
“It didn’t make any sense,” Rob tells ipromiseyoumedia from the household’s house in Nashville, the place their third daughter, Agnès, was born in 2020. “It was the very last thing we anticipated.”
Indigo was instantly admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Heart, and following two weeks of great problems due to ongoing TIAs (transient ischemic assaults, or ministrokes), she underwent the primary of three lengthy and troublesome mind surgical procedures.
Her preliminary four-and-a-half-hour process went nicely, however a debilitating stroke the following day left her unable to talk or transfer.
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“She went from being this stunning 3-year-old with no medical trauma to impulsively being a bit of potato,” says Megan. “However she was nonetheless cognitively current, which was actually powerful. Actually, I simply sat and cried via loads of it.”
Indigo remained within the PICU for the following two months. “We’d get one, two hours’ sleep,” remembers Rob, “however you’d be scared to dying in case you weren’t current [if something happened].”
Now, the household has settled into a brand new form of regular, which incorporates staying vigilant in case Indigo has one other seizure or stroke, and numerous journeys to the ER.
“We have been there each single month for at the least per week, for nearly a 12 months and a half,” remembers Megan. “However Indigo’s a fighter of the best order. Giving up has by no means even entered her thoughts.”
The excellent news is, whereas there may be nonetheless no remedy, Indigo can reside a full life with Moyamoya with the precise drugs and most definitely additional surgical procedures.
She is going to develop up, and she will get married and even have youngsters sometime. “It is a progressive illness,” says Megan. “We simply have to sustain with it.”
The kid loves household film night time, her sisters and her beloved canine Hercules, a rescue educated to detect oncoming strokes and seizures.
Rob says there has since been an fascinating upshot to all of the grief and stress with parenting a toddler with an incurable mind illness: a newfound religion in humanity.
“It’s superb what occurs when you need to depend on the kindness of strangers,” he says, tearing up on the reminiscence of all the chums who caught by them all through the worst of the ordeal, and the brand new buddies they’ve met alongside the best way, together with Indigo’s physician, Dr. Wang, who “handled her like she was his personal daughter.”
“Our Muslim neighbors, who we beforehand did not know, would drop off dinner thrice per week. Now they’re good buddies. The nurses would take our garments to their very own houses and wash them for us once we have been sleeping there. The kindness we have been proven was simply unimaginable. We now know what it’s prefer to be at midnight and have full strangers come to our assist and save us,” he says.
In return, Rob and Megan have devoted themselves to giving again and volunteering after they can, together with with Matthew McConaughey’s Simply Hold Livin’ Basis.
Rob tells ipromiseyoumedia, “This expertise has given us extra religion in humanity than we ever thought doable, which trumps any of the unhappiness.”
