Miracle Moment: Horsepower drives healing

Reporter: Amanda Hall
Published: Updated:

It’s time for Miracle Moment.

A horse gave a young girl the motivation she needed to fight an aggressive cancer.

There’s something seriously special at Special Equestrians in Fort Myers. While there’s work going on around the horse stalls, it’s so calm. The air is just different.

It’s why Taylor Waletko and her mom, Amanda, couldn’t wait to get back there.

Taylor and Amanda always looked forward to going there once a week because of the freedom Taylor came to treasure.

Cherished moments had to take an immediate and indefinite pause when Taylor started to struggle to swallow.

She had a mass, which was a rare form of B-cell lymphoma, taking up 70% of her throat. She came out of being intubated and had a breathing tube down her throat.

After 71 days in the hospital, a medically induced coma, three surgeries and 38 bags of chemo, Taylor is ready to get back in the saddle.

Her mom said it’s what kept her going through the hardest months of her life, wishing for the day she could be reunited with her horse Wishy.

A wish her mom wasn’t sure would come true.

“We went from her being in a bed intubated, quite honestly, not knowing if she was going to come off of that intubation, to back here today, less than six months later, and she’s cancer-free. It’s a miracle,” Amanda said.

Taylor still has a port to make blood draws easier.

So long as Taylor continues to put weight back on, her mom believes her doctor will clear her to ride again when the port is removed, hopefully in a few weeks.

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