ProRodeo Sports News - June 26, 2020

Steven Peebles, fiancée coping with infant daughter’s health issues Trying Times COWBOYS & FAMILY

BY TRACY RENCK S teven Peebles has dealt with more than his share of adversity throughout his rodeo career. In 2015, Peebles almost lost his life after suffering a broken rib that nicked an artery and filled his lungs with blood at the Livingston (Mont.) Roundup. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors drained his lungs and saved his life. “In the back of the ambulance that day, I begged God for another chance at life,” Peebles said. Fast-forward to May 6, 2020, and Peebles found himself dealing with another type of adversity – his newborn daughter’s health problems. On May 6, the 2015 PRCA

Bareback Riding World Champion and his fiancée, Sierra Willett, welcomed their baby girl, Chloe Jean Peebles. The happiness of a new child quickly turned to concern. “Everybody says when you have a child, it is a different kind of love, something you have never experienced before, and I felt it,” said Peebles, 31. The euphoria of Chloe’s birth was soon replaced by fear because of health problems. Chloe has Wolff-Parkinson- White syndrome, also known as WPW.

“I wanted to give my heart to her so they could put it in her chest. I would die for her to live.”

It’s a condition in which there is an extra electrical pathway in the heart. The condition can lead to periods of tachycardia, or rapid heart rate. WPW syndrome is one of the most common causes of fast heart rate problems in infants and children. “As a result of WPW syndrome the electrical signals spur her heart into a frenzy, into an SVT (supraventricular tachycardia), where it goes like 280 beats a minute,” Willett said. “They put me on a heart medication (when pregnant) so it would go to the baby, but it wasn’t working so they had to induce me. “Newborns’ hearts normally skip a couple of times and (Chloe’s) was skipping a lot more than that. Her heart beats so fast you don’t hear it that well with a doppler or anything like that. I was sent to a specialist to have an ultrasound done. They were able to see her heart, and it looked like a hummingbird’s wings it was beating so fast. They had a general idea of what I could expect, and they could put me on a medication to handle it.” The issue caught Peebles andWillett off-guard. “After the ultrasound we were clearly upset because nobody ever expects anything to be wrong with their baby,” – STEVEN PEEBLES

Photo courtesy Sierra Willett Steven Peebles shares a moment with his daughter, Chloe, who was born May 6, his fiancée, Sierra Willett, and her son, Calvin, 3.

ProRodeo Sports News 6/26/2020

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