Girl on Fire: Paizlee Hardin’s Return to the Show Ring
Upbeat. Ambitious. Sincere. Everyone who knows Paizlee Hardin of Brock, Texas, agrees this 16-year-old’s ability to light up a room is undeniable. An avid pig showman, golfer and FFA officer, Hardin was a happy high school sophomore. But on March 15, her life as she knew it changed when she began experiencing “crazy symptoms” and lost her ability to walk.
“I felt like I was on fire,” Hardin says.
Not knowing what was happening to their daughter, parents Chris and Summer Hardin rushed their daughter to the emergency room. She was admitted to Cooks Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and doctors attempted to get her pain under control.
For 11 days, she was poked and prodded and tested. Brain, back and neck MRIs revealed nothing. Spinal tap? Nothing. Blood tests? Still nothing. She was eventually diagnosed with rhinovirus – a common cold.
“I went home for three days, then we had to go back because I had another pain flare-up. I was there for three more days before they diagnosed me with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) on April 1,” Hardin says.
What is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome?
Hardin describes CRPS as stabbing, tingling, burning pain combined with random numbness and off-and-on paralysis. It’s a form of chronic pain that is out of proportion to the severity of the initial injury. She says it’s a rare condition that presents itself in one out of 200,000 people.
“She can touch her own self, but if anyone else touches her, it feels like sparklers touching her,” her mother Summer says. “She is in pain 24/7. She lives at level 9 pain.”
The doctors weren’t able to do much to help, so they sent her back home again with orders to complete occupational and physical therapy. Hardin says she tried to be a normal teenager. She went to see Taylor Swift and attended prom.
“The day after prom, I went back to the ER to get meds and fluids,” Hardin says. “I just overdid it. I was in the hospital a week – it was the worst hospital stay of my life. They didn’t want to give me any medicines because they didn’t want me to get addicted.”
Nothing was working.
“That’s when it got super frustrating. My family didn’t know what to do,” Hardin says. “My mom and dad wanted to help me so much, but they physically couldn't.”
On April 6, she had her first seizure. An electroencephalogram (EEG) test, used to measure the electrical activity of the brain, revealed 18 non-epileptic episodes within 24 hours. Doctors got her seizures under control and sent her home again.
After they released her on April 10, she was told to go rest and work on getting her functionality back through therapies without medicine.
“I just sat at home and just bawled my eyes out at first,” Hardin says. “I know I will have to live with the pain, but I would like to get back to my life and be able to handle the pain.”
A Slow Road Back
When Kailey King, an occupational therapist at Countryside Therapy Group in Weatherford, Texas, heard about Hardin’s diagnosis, she reached out to Summer to see if her daughter needed an occupational therapist.
King knew Summer through her role as a teacher at the local elementary school. King offered to go out to the Hardins’ house and help in any way she could.
“I had heard of the diagnosis itself but didn't know much about it or the treatment for it,” King says. “I am the type of person who always loves a challenge and seeks to learn. As soon as they asked me to work with Paizlee, I immediately started researching and taking continuing education classes for this specific diagnosis so I could provide the best care possible.”
Perhaps the best part of all was that King had also shown pigs when she was a kid. When Hardin shared that one of her goals was to be able to compete in the local Brock show, King was up for the challenge.
“When Paizlee said she wanted to show, Kailey said, ‘OK let’s go out to the barn and get some whips,’” Summer shares. “She said, ‘God just put us together. And this is what we're going to do.’”
King works with Hardin three times a week to work on strength building, pain management, desensitization, functional mobility, range of motion, safety techniques and energy conservation. They also spend time focusing on Hardin’s mental health and maintaining a positive outlook on her diagnosis, so she can get back to doing the things she loves, King explains.
“Paizlee has an incorrect response to pain and ultimately this causes a delay in her muscle feedback, range of motion and strength to complete everyday tasks, including walking,” King explains. “Some days we are able to push her more and some days her endurance is low so we have to move slower or take it easier. Paizlee also has pain/stress-induced seizures, so we have to limit the amount we push due to difficulty managing this.”
For example, it took two weeks to work up to the Brock show. They went up to the show ring two times before the show to walk around on the dirt and sit out in the environment to see how Hardin felt.
Walking pigs, once an easy, mindless task, now required great concentration and focus. Hardin says she couldn’t do it without the help of her family and friends.
“Madi’s been taking care of all of my pigs – that is humongous,” Hardin says.
But she wasn’t the only one. When family friend, Rob Brasher, heard the news and the stress in his friend Chris’ voice about all the pigs in the barn that needed more care than one teenage girl could provide while her parents were in the hospital with her sister, he jumped at the chance to help.
“I told the Hardins if they could get a 30-amp breaker by the barn, I’d move my camper there for a while and take care of the pigs before the Brock show,” Brasher says.
During that time, he went to the hospital to see Hardin and he said it really opened his eyes and changed his perspective.
“It made me see how the stuff that I had going on in my life really wasn’t that big of a deal,” Brasher says. “I got so caught up in the show pig scene, I was a little crazy about it. Watching their family go through this has changed my perspective about how short life is.”
He knew it was challenging for the family to accept the possibility that Hardin might not be able to show again, so he wanted to do everything he could to help make it easier on them.
It’s Show Time
On May 6, Hardin proved she could get back in the ring with a lot of determination and drive. There weren’t many dry eyes in the barn as the young woman who once was the “one to watch” when it came to showmanship could barely make it across the ring with her pig, Tiny, even with the help of a gait belt and King’s steady hand.
“Kailey showed up on Saturday in her jeans ready to go into the ring,” Summer says. “She was like, ‘I got this. Y’all can sit back and enjoy it. She completely took over.’”
King guarded Hardin from falling or getting brushed by a pig – which is no easy feat to do.
“If a pig barely touched me, I would probably have fallen without my OT there because it would have sent my body into shock,” Hardin says. “The dirt was tough. I am not good at walking now and had to think about how to step, what move comes next, how to control my pig and know where it was at all times.”
She admits the whole thing felt like a theater production. Her mother agrees – a beautiful production that brought together friends and family to help make one young woman’s goal come to life.
“Everyone was super supportive and a lot of them were in shock because they’ve watched me show before and this was so different,” Hardin says.
Although winning the San Antonio Gilt Show in 2003 had been one of King’s coolest moments showing pigs, she says that all changed after helping Hardin at the Brock show.
“It was one of those moments as a therapist when I knew God put me exactly where I was supposed to be,” King says. “It was honestly breathtaking to see the support she was given and then to top it off, she had a great pig and won her breed. For Paizlee, it was extremely emotional just knowing how much hard work and determination it took to even get out there and walk, much less show a pig.”
For those who knew Hardin before, it’s still hard to believe she is taking – quite literal – baby steps to achieve the goals she has for herself, says Ashley Young, agricultural science teacher at Brock High School.
“Knowing how much she wanted this, and seeing her achieve this goal, made my eyes fill up with tears and my heart burst with pride. I was and still am so proud of her,” Young says. “It felt like the crowd was in awe of her strength and perseverance, like we were all holding our breath in hopes she would make it through the whole thing... and she did!”
Back to the Hospital
The therapies helped Hardin stay out of the hospital a little longer after the show, but soon enough she was readmitted, this time to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. She came home from this hospital visit with another diagnosis: functional neurological disorder (FND).
No one can pinpoint what started the domino effect that eventually led to her diagnosis of CRPS and FND. In July 2022, she was on vacation in the Dominican Republic and became ill with e Coli. She also developed a pineapple allergy. It took nearly six months for her digestive system to get back on track. Then, in February, she got strep throat. In March, she was hit in the back with a golf ball at the driving range and it sent a shock up her back two days before she was hospitalized.
“Her immune system was compromised and her body was worn out. One thing after another just completely shot her body down,” Summer says. “Now, we are trying to reconnect her brain and nerves because they’ve lost connection.”
Being positive is the most important thing, Hardin says.
“I can do all the desensitization and the therapies, but you have to be positive for it all to work together,” she adds.
Her parents continue to search for any kind of therapy that may help – whether insurance covers it or not.
“It’s been a total life change,” Summer says. “I feel like I am more patient now. We've learned that things we thought were a big deal are not a big deal anymore. As my husband says, we take it ‘half day by half day.’”
What’s Next?
For Hardin, the pain hasn’t lessened. No medicines help. She uses heat packs to find minimal relief. At the end of the day, it’s taught her patience.
“I’ve learned I’m stronger than I thought I was, and I can overcome everything mentally,” she says. “You will go through stuff in life – but you can’t let it define you. Some kids with CRPS are even paralyzed for years because they won’t accept it. They need to know this isn’t you – you are way bigger than what you are going through right now. It’s hard now, but there is more to come.”
Hardin completed her sophomore year from home with the help of great teachers who even stopped by to teach her at home. One of her teachers even watched her show Tiny at the Brock show.
“As hard as it has been to watch Paizlee go through these scary times, she has taught me so much about persevering,” Young says. “No matter how scary it may be and how many obstacles she is having to overcome, she continues to persevere and reach her goals. She makes other problems in life seem so small, and she unknowingly pushes others to be better versions of themselves, myself included.”
Prayer, patience and “people they never realized were their people” are three of the reasons Summer explains that their family continues to move forward. Life now requires a lot of planning and thinking ahead. It also requires a lot of being calm.
“I have to be the calm,” she says. “I feel like we are slower now. We used to be the ‘yes’ family. Now we are like ‘Not this time, not today’ family.”
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