Every Valentine’s Day, while many families exchange cards and candy, 11-year-old Zeph Hay and his mom, Liz Knight, return to the place where love once meant the fight to survive.
Their annual visit to Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola marks the anniversary of the day Zeph nearly died.
On Valentine’s Day in 2015, Zeph was just two weeks old when he suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. His temperature had dropped to 96.6 degrees, and he began seizing shortly after arriving at the emergency room. Doctors feared he would not survive the night.
“One side of his head was whited out with blood,” Knight recalled. “He was horribly, horribly sick and very nearly died. And they worked really hard…..”
Before she could finish, Zeph broke into song, belting out lyrics from I'm Still Standing by Elton John:
“Yet I'm still standing after all this time. Feeling like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid. You know I'm still standing better than I ever did.”
His mother laughed. “That was amazing.”
It’s a heartwarming scene that seemed unthinkable 11 years ago. In those terrifying early hours, Zeph had to be intubated. Because he was too unstable to move, surgeons placed a brain drain in his hospital room. He spent six days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), and Knight was unable to hold her newborn for five of them. After his breathing tube was removed, Zeph began eating and breathing on his own.
Today, Zeph is a thriving fourth grader at Montessori School. He walks, talks and keeps up with his classmates, milestones that once seemed uncertain. He does have some lingering effects from his traumatic health ordeal, including a very mild form of cerebral palsy, and was recently diagnosed with ADHD.
His recovery has become something of a legend at the hospital.
The tradition of returning began in 2016, the first anniversary of his medical crisis. With a few exceptions due to extenuating circumstances, Zeph and his mom have visited every Valentine’s Day since, bringing cookies, snacks, cards and “then-and-now” photos documenting his progress. This year, they delivered acrylic thank-you signs to both the Pediatric Emergency Room and the PICU, the sites of his most tenuous moments.
Many of the photos Knight has brought over the years are displayed in both units. Even nurses who joined the hospital long after 2015 recognize Zeph’s face.
Some of the staff who helped save his life still work there, including Dr. Robert Patterson, Medical Director of the PICU.
“Zeph’s never forgotten us. And their family has never forgotten us. And so every year, Valentine's Day, we've come to look forward to it. Like, it's better than Christmas,” Patterson said.
“It makes me feel like there's good in this world, and that good is peeking its way into my intensive care unit, into my life today, on Valentine's Day. Which I think is very appropriate to be celebrating love, because love is really what we feel for Zeph and his family.”
Dr. Jason Foland, now president of the children’s hospital, was Medical Director of the PICU when Zeph was admitted 11 years ago. He was there on Saturday for this year’s reunion, catching up with Zeph about school and his interests. Nurses who cared for him as a newborn marveled at how far he has come.
For Knight, who had worked as a NICU nurse at Sacred Heart until the day before Zeph was born and now serves as a staff nurse at Healthcare for Kids, the yearly pilgrimage is about gratitude and closure.
“I just want them to see,” she said. “Their greatest triumph to me is that they worked so hard and had a good outcome, and my family is put back together because of it.”
On a day devoted to hearts and flowers, Zeph’s return offers hospital staff something deeper: a living reminder of why they do what they do.
