Translate This Page To: Spanish German French Italian Portuguese Norwegian Brought to you From FreeTranslation.com Isabella Angela Moscarello This is a picture of the champer and a picture of Cassie and Isabella on Day 2 - Session 3 & 4 of HBOT. UPDATE: 1-26-09 Hi everyone,   Please sign Bella's petition to help with a new home for her. The link is below.  Also, if you could email me back in support for her, it would greatly be appreciated.   Please forward this petition to everyone you know if you get a chance. This will only increase Bella's chances of getting selected for a Home Makeover.   Also, anyone on my yahoo group, if you could post this, I would really appreciate it.  I only have limited access to my computer   Thank you!   Kelly Moscarello   Petition link   http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/752599139   Extreme Home Makeover's Site:   http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index?pn=index    Also, please forward this to as many people as you know. It might just increase her chances of getting what she needs.   Thank you,   (Proud to be Bella's mom, -----Kelly) UPDATE: 3-24-08 Hi everyone,    Someone FINALLY is posting about cord clamping on You tube!!!! I was getting around to it, but with all the personal drama in my life the past year, I had not had a chance to yet.  This is such an exciting start!!!!     DON'T CLAMP OR CUT THAT UMBILICAL CORD, PERIOD!!!!!!   Maybe now more people will start believing and stop thinking that those of us taking this message to the public are "crazy".       I am so happy.   Happy for Bella too.  Finally some justice and truth about what happened at her birth.  It surely did not happen in the courtroom. Kelly You Tube Clip UPDATE: 3-1-06 Hi everyone,   Bella will be going to Children's Hospital shortly.  She has been vomiting for almost 6 days now with fevers as high as 106 degrees.  Nothing I have done is getting her better.   Mark and I have decided to put a DNR (do not resuscitate) order on her if she starts to become unable to breathe on her own, or if she goes into cardiac arrest.  Neither of us wants to see her suffer any longer.  3 year old children are supposed to be having the time of their life, not hooked up to oxygen and feeding tubes unable to walk, talk, eat and play.   I hope I am wrong about my feeling that she won't be with us much longer.  Sigh.....   We all love her so much, but no more suffering.   Kelly UPDATE: 10-2-04 Hi everyone, We have been in Fort Lauderdale for 3 weeks now. I cannot believe how fast time goes by! Isabella is doing better and her eating/drinking abilities has improved tremendously in just a little over a week. Last Thursday, I was very close to admitting her in the hospital for IV fluids and another possible feeding tube because she was not eating or drinking at all. But Friday morning she picked it up, and on Hurricane Jeanne Saturday, she was eating and drinking like a pro. Coincidence? No way. Her fourth HBOT treatment was on that Friday, and that is why her eating abilities started to improve again. What a relief! Her tone is still yekky. Her stridor is beginning to lessen and her eating has improved 10000 percent. Her diapers are nice and wet because she is finally getting a decent amount of fluids which is something I have always struggled with. She is trying harder to balance while sitting in her bumbo seat, and she isn't pulling her right arm up to her head and getting it "stuck" there as much. Dr. Neubauer is absolutely wonderful!!!!!. He also has the same birthday as Isabella, how weird is that? He was really on the ball last week when I told him that Bella's eating was starting to shut down again, and he called all of his staff into the room and was barking orders at what to do. He said under no circumstances was he going to allow Bella to have another (expletive) feeding tube placed. He called upstairs to the therapy department and told them she needed to be seen STAT, no questions, no excuses, and that it was an emergency. Now, that is the kind of doctors these kids need. Dr. Neubauer, one of the world's leading hyperbaric doctors, is what I was hoping for and much more. He is compassionate, smart, funny, and will never stop trying to help these children for as long as he lives. He listens to my theories on brain damage and cerebral palsy, and agrees that early cord clamping is what is causing some of the cerebral palsy that he sees. I first showed him information from Dr. Morley (www.cordclamping.com) last week and he admitted he never quite thought about it before, but after reading Dr. Morley's research and information, he feels that Dr. Morley's work is "brilliant" and he now wants to help Dr. Morley and I stop the horrendous procedure known as immediate cord clamping. Everyone who knows me knows that I have talked about this issue for months and have sworn that I would not, and will not shutup about this crippling "routine" practice until doctors STOP doing it. So, I am hoping by next week, that I will be successful in getting Dr. Morley and Dr. Neubauer on the phone together to help them work together to stop some of this horrifying brain damage. Prevention is the key. Dr. Neubauer says it, I say it, and Dr. Morley says it. He agreed that cord clamping too early was child abuse and actually worse than child abuse. Once that cord is clamped too early and brain damage is the end result. Forever, these kids have brain damage forever. Yes, maybe they can recover some from hyperbaric, but never completely. He said he will do everything he can to help stop doctors from doing this. I about fell on the floor!!! Dr. Morley will be happy (I think!!) and I just know that I was meant to come down here. Two doctors who are in their 70's trying to get these horrible things that are happening to our children to stop. The only difference is Dr. Morley is trying to prevent the brain damage, while Dr. Neubauer is trying to heal some of the devastation. UPDATE: 9-6-04 Hello, Just a brief update. My husband and I our three young children will be driving from Ohio to Florida sometime this week to go to Dr. Neubauers' medical center where he will be treating Isabella for her brain injury. We will be staying at the Ronald McDonald house out there. We were waiting to leave to ride out the hurricane in Florida before we left. Everything should be good to go here within the next couple of days. I will be providing updates every couple of days. Kelly UPDATE: 7-13-04 Hi everyone, I decided to come home on June 26th, which was 10 days early due to extreme physical and mental exhaustion on my part. I had just had a miscarriage, and was really tired out and wanted to come home. Plus my dad needed me to be home too after finding out he had lung cancer. Isabella did really well out in Texas. She only had 19 treatments, but the following improvements have been noted by me and her therapists: A substantial decrease in her laryngomalacia (stridor). This condition made it difficult for Isabella to breathe normally and also inhibited normal eating patterns. While the stridor is still present, it has noticeably decreased and has made eating much easier for her. Isabella lost weight while in Texas due to constant vomiting and inability to keep food down. Since our return, she not only has kept her food down, she has gained weight. Since the feeding tube was placed in March, 2004, she had not gained even one ounce. Since June 30th,however, she has gained 10 ounces. She has since gained the ability to suck from a bottle and pacifier. Her attempts at sucking are still weak, but before HBOT, she was completely unable to suck, swallow, and breathe with any effectiveness at all. Decreased athethoid movements. Athetoid cerebral palsy movements, defined as involuntary, purposeless movements, especially in the face, arms, and trunk. Often times it is this type of movement that interferes with a lot of very important functions such as feeding, reaching, grasping, and skills that require coordinated and purposeful movement. Any change, even small, in these areas are vital and critical in helping a child to achieve physical and mental milestones which are important for normal development. Increased hunger and desire to eat. This has not been accomplished one time in Isabella's short life. She has eaten successfully without a feeding tube, but it has always been a struggle to get her to eat willingly. Bella has severe failure to thrive due to the continued inability, even with a feeding tube, to gain weight steadily. The first signs of decent weight gain were achieved with HBOT just in the past two weeks. More sounds and attempts to make new sounds. Before HBOT, Isabella would smile often, but was mostly "non-verbal". She now vocalizes more frequently and is making more attempts to make people around her aware of her choices and feelings. She tries to wiggle and dance to music and is much more aware of her surroundings and tries to participate in the activities going on around her. Needless to say I am very pleased with the results. I am currently trying to figure out how to take her for 40 more, but money is always the factor of course. I am working to get our insurance company to cover the cost, but that is going to be a battle. Looks like I will have to be taking her out of state again to get her care because not one of the hospitals out in my area who have HBOT chambers will treat my child!!! If I can get the HBOT covered through our insurance company, I will just need to raise the money for airfare and living expenses (again). But I am trusting in God that he will come through for us just like he did this last time. I am also working with the local newspaper and our local Senator to bring attention to this matter. This treatment is not just about Isabella, but rather about the thousands of other children with brain damage and cerebral palsy. Bella continues to do well, has put on a little weight, and has really picked up cognitively. I am excited to see what 40 more treatments will do for her. God Bless, Kelly Moscarello UPDATE: 7-12-04 I have a wonderful update for you to post. Isabella only had 19 HBOT treatments and is doing awesome. Now I am searching for a way to continue the treatments for her and need lots of prayers for this to happen. I will give the details in my update. UPDATE: 6-18-04 Hi everyone, Well, Bella has had 10 HBOT treatments. We are in the chamber twice a day for one hour and 15 minutes for each "dive". It is a great way to get to learn all the wonderful little noises and songs on Baby Einstein and to talk with Ann, Tess' mom, who I only knew from the HIESC yahoo group. I never in a million years thought I would be sitting inside of what looks like a little space shuttle watching Barney for an hour. I can't stand the Barney movies, but Tess likes them, so that is all that matters. Spaceships and Barney, what won't I do for my daughter? LOL Bella is eating MUCH better. She is actually wanting to drink from the cup instead of turning away in horror every time I offer. THIS IS A NEW THING!!! She loves coke out of a straw and I am using that to "bait" her and then I switch over to a cup full of ingredients you would never drink. Probably why she only drinks one ounce at a time too though. I don't seem to have any problem getting too many calories. Jen and I witnessed our first little miracle today. I went into the gas station to buy the other kids some pop (all pop out in Texas is called coke - only coca cola tastes like coke to me, all the rest of it is yekky) and some snacks. I got some water because it was about 95 degrees. I opened up the van door to give Dom, Katie and Kory their water, and Bella starting acting crazy, but normal crazy because she wanted some water!! She has never done that before. So I opened up the squeeze lid a little and squirted some in her mouth. Cassie was watching this whole drama unfold and she wanted some!!! So I alternated back and forth between the girls letting them have as much water (slowly of course) as they wanted. It was great!!! I had Jen come and take a picture for proof (for all the skeptics). We relished in the moment and while it may not be any big deal for most parents to watch their child drink water, it was for us. Bella never coughed once and Cassie never skipped a beat. This went on for about 5 minutes. I guess even children who have severe oral aversion want water in the Texas heat and decide to lose their oral defensiveness, even if for just a few minutes. Bella has not been regularly tubefed for about 4 days now, but is back to eating. Not what she needs, but I am taking baby steps. Cassie has been off of her feeding pump on a consistent basis, but rather Jen is feeding her bolus feeds, which just means that she is getting all of her food like you and I would eat - all at once and not drop by drop. So she will get one ounce over a period of say 2 minutes, versus 60 minutes. Her vomiting is much less and she looks better, is happier, and it is just great! This is great news for Jen because the feeding pump is a big pain in the butt, always beeps, is attached to the kids like a big 50 foot chain of rope and is just not fun for the child or the mother. Bella has been babbling more and I am still hoping for improvements in her tone and sitting abilities, but can't report any as of yet. Same for Cassie. I will be setting up my camcorder and tripod to get more accurate information about what it is like getting the girls ready for therapy, what the techs do, their equipment, etc. It is all very fascinating. We did get to meet a woman who is getting HBOT for her son who had a strangulation injury 3 years ago when he was 2 years old. His neck got caught in a electric car window and he lost oxygen to his brain. He ended up on a feeding tube and completely helpless. He has had 150 treatments (3 years time) and is now off the feeding tube, sits, scoots, is trying to walk, talks some, smiles and is recovering. I am now starting to realize how HBOT works. It is not a miracle cure. Nothing is. It is timely, slow recovery. But it seems to be recovery nevertheless. That is more than most of the conventional therapies are able to offer brain injured children. Are all of you doctors out there listening???? We need HBOT for our kids. You have to try!! Their quality of life depends on a few doctors being bold enough to try something new. Everything that has helped a child get better, started with one child at a time, and Bella, Cassie and Tess are begging for you to help them. Not just range of motion, foot braces, standers, walkers, botox, medicines, and invasive surgeries, but additional methods/therapies that just may give our babies a fighting chance to recover, if even a little. Everything is going well. Dominic is tearing it up out here and is a huge handful. He found some cigarette butts outside and somehow knew they were called smokes. Oh no! Katie is always hungry and is taking full advantage of all the restaurant opportunities out here. Jen and I are getting along well and I can't believe I have been out here 11 days already. Jen has all the good pictures and I promise I will get some up soon. You can check out Cassie's site to see some of them though. I am seeing God working little miracles with Bella's eating, her appetite, her willingness to accept food without doing the exorcist neck maneuver to get away from me. Cassie is showing a new interest in food and drinking too which is wonderful. We will take whatever we can get. I am trying very hard to be patient as I want Bella fixed now and somehow I think if I just research more, pray more, and educate myself more, it will come true. And you know what, it just might, it just might........... Take care, Kelly Moscarello UPDATE: 6-14-04 Hi everyone, Well, we have been in Texas for almost a week now. Our flight out of Akron/Canton airport was delayed on Monday afternoon because a woman ran through a security checkpoint and then could not be found. The entire airport was shut down and everyone was forbidden to get onto their flights. We all were escorted back to the security checkpoints to be rescreened. Arrggggghhhh. I was already having a hard time running Isabella's feeding through her tubing and I could not keep it cold as I had no ice. But I finally got those problems resolved and 90 minutes later the three kids and I were on our plane headed to Cincinnati, Ohio. We got into Cincinnati with 7 minutes to spare to the next flight to Dallas/Fort Worth Texas. It was supposed to be a two hour layover. Good thing it was originally 2 hours or I would have missed my flight. Bella was good on both flights. Dominic was a handful, but then he always is no matter where he is or what the situation. It was challenging to run Bella's tube feeding in the plane though. All the tubing kept getting kinked and the feeding pump kept beeping with an error. I was so afraid she was going to throw up in the airplane like she always does at home. But she didn't do too bad. We finally got off the plane in Texas at about 8:20 p.m. and met Jen and her family. Cassie is one month older than Bella and has a similar brain injury to Bella. Kory is 5 years old and it wasn't long before Dom and Kory were chasing each other around the airport. Everyone is finally settled in and doing well. Jen has a beautiful home with plenty of space. Katie is doing okay but is kind of bored and Dom and Kory alternate between getting along well and fighting over toys. All completely normal of course. Bella has had 4 oxygen therapy treatments and the only thing I notice that is different is she is sitting a lot better in her "bumbo" seat which is a special seat for children with trunk support difficulties. She is sleeping a lot more too which I was told was normal because the oxygen is helping to heal her brain and that would make her tired. Cassie is sleeping a lot more too. Cassie has had 6 treatments and Jen and I have not noticed any changes as of yet. Most children see some changes after 40 treatments, sometimes it is as soon as 20 treatments. I am starting to understand more about how HBOT works and why it is so time consuming and expensive. Parents start to see some recovery after the first round of 40 sessions, and then have to try and come up with money for 40 more. Plus they have to find a medical center close to them as well as a center that doesn't charge an exhorbitant amount for oxygen therapy. That is probably why a lot of the centers that are opening in the United States right now are being opened by parents who have a brain injured child. They are able to provide treatment for their child as well as make additional income by treating other children as well. That may well be the route I go if this treatment helps my daughter. There aren't any centers in Ohio that are close enough or cost effective to get Isabella the help she needs. The hyperbaric chamber is really neat looking. I will post some more pictures soon. It looks like a little room that astronauts would get into to go on a space flight. The girls are fitted with oxygen hoods and settled in. The heavy metal door is shut and then the chamber goes into a "dive" which means that the atmospheric pressure is changing as if we were going underwater to a certain depth. Oxygen is pumped into the girls hoods for one hour and then the chamber is slowly adjusted back up to the level it started at. The girls watch the Baby Einstein movies the entire time. Cassie almost always gets upset and cries. Bella is pretty mellow. It is not uncomfortable except for some mild popping of the ears. Never would I have dreamt that I would be sitting in something so strange. But if it hellps Bella, that is all that matters. The weather is really hot here in Texas today. It rained from Monday to Wednesday and the streets were somewhat flooded. This is unusual for Texas, but it didn't last long, and now the hot and dry weather TX is known for is here. Next week we are scheduled to have 10 more one hour treatments. Hopefully there will be some changes and recovery in the girls. We are hopeful!! Prayers and blessings to all of you and please send some our way too, Kelly Moscarello A special hello to everyone at Eastgate and Mercy Medical Center. Update: 6-6-04 Hi everyone, We will be leaving out of Akron/Canton airport on Monday, June 7th, to go to Texas to stay with another family who has a brain injured little girl who will be getting therapy at the same time as Bella. Her name is Cassie Walker. Another family will also be going at the same time as us with their little girl. Developmentally they all are doing about the same - nothing. Still no ability to sit up independently, crawl, stand, walk or eat without the help of a feeding tube. We are hoping for some miracles, even small ones. Please pray for recovery for all three of these beautiful little girls as they need some miracles to help them get better. Bella's website will be continuously updated so that her progress with the hyperbaric oxygen therapy will be documented. I will be taking my camcorder, digital camera, my regular camera, and a journal with me. If this therapy helps Bella, then I want the media to know so that the word can get out to other families with brain-injured children, cerebral palsy, and other debilitating medical disabilities might also find some help with HBOT. If it doesn't help, then at least I tried. In case you are wondering what HBOT is: to put in simple terms that you and I can understand, Bella will be breathing 100 percent oxygen that is pressurized. The air we breathe is only 21 percent oxygen, 78 percent nitrogen, and the 1 percent is trace elements. Oxygen is critical for new cell growth and for healing of damaged tissues. The oxygen will be delivered to these girls in a hyperbaric chamber and they will breathe oxygen for one hour, twice a day, for 5 days per week for a total of 40 hours/treatments. The chamber will start to go into what is called a "dive", which means that the pressure will be below atmospheric pressure - kind of like diving into a pool and going down 16 feet. Oxygen that we breathe in the air does not get into the brain and past the blood/brain barrier like it will inside the chamber. This oxygen will pass the blood brain barrier and go directly into the brain and saturate the tissues inside the brain. Doing this will hopefully help to heal the damaged areas that might be recoverable and in a state of shock, but not dead. The dead parts of the brain cannot be recovered or repaired. At least not yet. Maybe in the future. But if the other tissue surrounding the "dead" area can be healed, then the signals in the brain can start sending messages again, thus letting the muscles, nerves, and cells in the body know what they are supposed to do which is what is NOT happening now. Did you get all of that?? LOL The key to children getting better and not suffering from horrifying brain injury that results in a lifelong disability, is to get them into a hyperbaric chamber as soon as they are stabilized whether they are newborns or older children with a head injury from an accident. That way the destruction to the very sensitive brain can be stopped, reversed and possibly healed. Unfortunately HBOT is relatively still new in terms of treatments for brain injury and most medical professionals aren't even aware of what it is. There are many parents trying to get that changed though, including me. Anyhow, nothing is ever guaranteed in medicine, but we are all hopeful. I will update everyone again when I get home on July 7th, but there will be updates on her site. Take care. Have a great summer and send some positive wishes and prayers of hope and miracles our way, Thanks, Kelly ADDED: 6-5-04 Condition: HIE, Cerebral Palsy, Failure to Thrive, gtube Isabella had oxygen deprivation at birth which caused severe injury to her brain. She is developmentally delayed physically. But she also has a beautiful smile and is very aware of what is going on around her. She has 3 brothers and 3 sisters and a mom and dad who love her very much and she is 16 months old. If you would like to add a page for your child, click on "Add A Child" below. Please be aware that once a child's page is added to this website the information becomes public. Please keep this in mind when posting information. It is recommended that you DO NOT post your full names or addresses unless using a post office box. 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