USA Health Magazine: She’s a miracle

By Casandra Andrews
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This story was originally featured in the Summer 2026 edition of the USA Health magazine.

A rapid decline

The day after Christmas, Danielle Faircloth noticed her youngest child – 2-month-old Lanier – seemed lethargic. She was running a fever, refused to take a bottle, and was nearly impossible to wake.

Lanier had visited the pediatrician that day, but Faircloth and her husband, Raymond, bundled her up and headed to the pediatric emergency center at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital.

In the waiting room, the baby began to get worse. The couple didn’t know it at the time, but their 8-week-old started having seizures – and likely a stroke. After a CT scan and swift action from the emergency medicine team, Lanier was rushed to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) upstairs for further treatment.

After multiple blood draws and a lumbar puncture, the infant was diagnosed with Haemophilus influenzae (H. flu) bacterial meningitis, a rare life-threatening condition that causes swelling of the brain and spinal cord and requires aggressive treatment.

For Lanier, that treatment included a feeding tube, a blood transfusion, oxygen to help her breathe, and hundreds of family, friends and strangers praying for her recovery. All told, the baby was hospitalized for 30 days. What happened during that month, her parents said, was nothing short of miraculous.    

An unexpected turn

As sunlight streamed through a window at the family’s home on a recent afternoon, Danielle Faircloth alternated between holding her daughter close and bouncing the smiling 4-month-old on her lap, recounting the details of Lanier’s hospital stay.

The most amazing part, she said, was what happened between the first MRI and the second. Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, uses magnets and radio waves to obtain detailed views of soft tissue such as the brain, muscles, and ligaments. Results from Lanier’s first MRI showed damage to the frontal lobe of her brain, which can be a result of meningitis. When her parents heard this heartbreaking news, they did not immediately share it with the outside world.

Six days later, on Jan. 7, Danielle Faircloth wrote an email to family and friends about what happened. These are her words:

“The flood of emotions was overwhelming and beyond terrifying, but we continued to pray and never once gave up hope for Lanier’s future. We kept our head down, knowing that whatever came our way, we were going to face head-on and tackle this no matter what our future may look like. We kept this news personal and were hesitant to share because we knew God had other plans...

“This morning around 11 a.m. we received what I like to call a miracle. Lanier’s most recent MRI scans show the infection has cleared, and the brain damage is no longer visible. There are no words, there are no answers. Maybe it’s the new medication she’s been given; maybe it was the blood transfusion, but maybe – and most likely – it was faith.

“Our road to recovery has now opened up, and we are beginning to see the most beautiful light. I close my eyes and I see my little girl running, laughing, playing, and doing all the little things girls do. I know that one day she is going to have one hell of a testimony!  Tomorrow is a new day, and we will continue to speak to doctors and make a new plan for her path to recovery. We are oh so blessed and forever grateful.”  

Steps toward recovery

The next day, Jan. 8, after two weeks of enduring fevers and seizures and more, Lanier was finally strong enough to breathe and eat on her own. As a result, her medical team decided to remove her oxygen and feeding tube and transfer her out of intensive care into a regular room.

While she still needed powerful antibiotics and anti-seizure medication, her prognosis was headed in the right direction. During the next week, her parents worked with the healthcare team as their daughter, now a 3-month-old, relearned how to take a bottle, among other achievements.

Lanier was also marking other important milestones. She transitioned from intravenous to oral medications, not an easy undertaking for a 12-week-old. And she was well enough to begin seeing more members of USA Health’s multidisciplinary healthcare team so they could determine what potential follow-up care would be needed at home.

On Jan. 12, Lanier was visited by an audiologist who was able to administer a test for hearing loss. The screening was inconclusive, her parents said, so more tests were scheduled. Bacterial meningitis is a leading cause of hearing loss, impacting up to 54% of survivors, research shows.

For those who battle bacterial meningitis, other health issues can also persist. Lanier will continue to take anti-seizure medications as she is monitored and treated by a medical team that includes a neurologist, immunologist, physical therapist, audiologist, and her pediatrician.

Benjamin Estrada, M.D., a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Children’s & Women’s Hospital, worked quickly to determine what was making baby Lanier so sick in the early days of her hospitalization. Testing confirmed that the cause of her meningitis was a type of Haemophilus influenzae.

Before the 1990s, this bacterial infection was a common cause of severe meningitis, but it became much less frequent after the introduction of the Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine. However, because the vaccine only protects against the type B strain, other Heamophilus influenzae strains remain a prevalent cause of meningitis among infants and young children.

It’s still rare. Depending on the location, a pediatrician could go years – even decades – without seeing such cases in infants or small children. In most places where surveillance has been performed in the U.S., fewer than 5 in 100,000 children typically develop bacterial meningitis, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I’m so incredibly happy for her remarkable recovery,” Estrada said.

In the best hands

On Jan. 26, nearly a month after rushing to the hospital, Lanier and her parents got the green light to leave. Their older children, Brenton, Jack, and Mac, welcomed them home with open arms and more than a few hugs.

Danielle Faircloth wrote this message to share the good news:

“After 30 days, we are finally home, healthy and on the mend! I have no doubt in my mind that if it weren’t for the wonderful doctors, PAs, nurses, and staff at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital, and most importantly the prayers from family and friends, Lanier would not be with us today. We are forever grateful!

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)”

In the weeks the family has been back together, Lanier continues to sleep through the night, sometimes logging 12 hours in her nursery. She loves to watch her canine companions, Ozzy and Pickles, scamper around the house as they keep a close watch on the youngest family member.

Looking back on their daughter’s struggles, the parents recall mixed feelings about saying goodbye to the caregivers who helped her heal.

“We felt safe,” Lanier’s dad said. “And the fact that it’s right down the street. Mobile is lucky to have this hospital.”

Danielle Faircloth said she was sad to leave because they had gotten so close to the staff. “When we were at Children’s & Women’s, I felt like ‘I can do this’ because she was in the best hands. I knew y’all had it.”