If you ask 9-year-old McKenzie Leftridge what she wants to be when she grows up.
“[I want] to get a big acting career,” she said.
It would probably explain her love for Disney movies and her love for acting.
“At the Florence Little Theatre I have been in 4 [plays],” she mentioned.
“To think about where we were then and to see your child in that state…I mean because there’s nothing as a father you wouldn’t do for your children,” explained her father, Daniel Leftridge.
McKenzie was born with unilateral coronal synostosis, a condition that can interfere with the normal growth of the brain and skull.
“They told us it’s something that randomly happens. There’s no genetics on either side that could’ve caused it,” Leftridge stated.
At 10 month’s McKenzie underwent corrective surgery.
“They actually cut her from ear to ear across the top of her head. They built her orbital ridge, the eyebrow bone, she didn’t have one,” added Leftridge.
McKenzie pulled through with the support of family and generous strangers with the help of blood transfusions.
“We are literally talking about the difference between one of us potentially not being able to work due to issues from this had the blood bank not work,” Leftridge said.
The American Red Cross says they rely on 15,000 blood donations each day to help support the 2,600 hospitals and transfusion centers nationwide.
It’s a gift in Leftridge’s eyes that keeps giving.
“We’re blessed,” he said.
Leftridge works at the Federal Correctional Institution in Williamsburg County.
He says his daughter’s transfusion inspired him to help organize blood drives at the prison.
