venerdì 21 novembre 2008
The History of the Child Carabiniere
2000, September 28th: Emanuele was born.
My son Emanuele’s story began like all children’s stories. He grew out of a beautiful lovestory and grew in a common family, with his mother, father, older sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Emanuele was a child like all the others children, he was a little angel, full of life and things to do. He willingly went to school, and when he was 4 years old he began to play the piano, to study English, to practise Karate and to play football.
He was fond of astronomy and read Margherita Hack’s books (he named her “Stars’ lady”).
One day Emanuele watched a movie about Salvo D’Acquisto, a young italian carabiniere who sacrificed his own life to rescue 22 hostage of ruthless Nazis during the Second World War.
Emanuele began dreaming of becoming a carabiniere. He said a carabiniere has to speak English to make international investigations and also has to be a Karate champion to fight against his enemies. So, he studied and applied hiself at most.
Moreover, everyday he asked me for going to Salvo D’Acquisto’s memorial, in front of our town’s military police station (We live at Cologno Monzese, near Milan). Every September 23th (Salvo D’Acquisto’s heroic sacrifice’s anniversary) and every April 25th he brought there a bouquet.
2007, Spring
Emanuele was 6 years old. He was attending his first year at the primary school, he was diligent and happy, he loved studying and playing both. He was a sporty little boy, he ran at the Stramilano Marathon. He was waiting for May to have his second concert performance with his piano and to have his Karate’s orange belt.
2007, April 10th
My son Emanuele had stomach-ache. Our family doctor suggested us to go to the First Aid.
We did it. At San Raffaele’s Hospital in Milan, we had to wait about 8 hours to have all his visits done. Emanuele was afraid, because all things were new to him, he had never saw any doctor until that moment. Anyway, he forced himself to look serene, he wanted to act like a little man, having no one tantrum. But his look showed his anxiety. He trusted me, unfortunately. I am his mother!
Actually his diagnosis arrived: Appendicitis. Emanuele had to be operated immediately.
My husband and I accompanied him to the operatory room. Emanuele walked on his own healthy and strong legs to arrive there and he got on his stretcher by hiself. He was afraid but he never cryed. All was ready for his surgery, so I kissed him for the last time, then my husband and I went to wait for him in his room in the pediatrics unit.
With the passing of the hours, we became worried. After many hours, 4 doctors arrived to tell us about “a problem happened to Emanuele in the operatory room”: he had passed 15 minutes without oxygen in his brain. They didn’t say more and went away.
We didn’t understand: what did it happen? What kind of problem? What did they mean?
Intensive Care
Someone told us that Emanuele was in the Intensive Care Unit, so we ran there. We saw our little Emanuele had artifical respiration and many needles in all his poor body. His chest was blue because of the defibrillator. He was naked and tormented, covered only by a sheet like Jesus.
I thought: “I hope they didn’t leave him alone, I hope he didn’t suffer”. I didn’t realize it, I couldn’t accept it, i wondered: Why, why, why?
What happened?
Why did Emanuele pass 15 minutes without oxygen? Nobody knew, nobody knows yet. Without oxygen, bunches of his neurons died. It is at that point that all ended and all started.
4 days later
We was in a nightmare. Doctors had to bore Emanuele’s head to measure his CFS’s pressure. They found it was too much high and it was too much risky to Emanuele’s life. So they had to take his frontal bones away to make place for his floated brain.
Emanuele’s life was in danger for many months. They tryed to cure him with hypothermia, that is making his body’s temperature lower; they also made him transfusions and gave him many hard medications.
I will never forget his constant crying. I heard it everytime they opened the Intensive Care Unit’s doors: it was the only patient who cryed. He wanted his mother, but they didn’t allow me to stay close to him, because I could enter there only in authorized hours.
2007, May 28th: another hospital
Emanuele was moved to another hospital, named “La Nostra Famiglia of Bosisio Parini”, at Lecco. My husband and I had to put our 13 years old daughter into the hands of my parents at Milan, and to rent another apartment in this new town, Lecco, to can stay close to Emanuele.
In fact, we passed all days and nights in the hospital, relieving each other.
Emanuele’s forehead was too much floated because by now his brain was out from the cranial cavity and it hadn’t its normal size yet. Nobody helped us with money for rent, bills and so on.
Emanuele was constantly crying, maybe it was (and still is) his way to communicate to us. He ate through a probe. He didn’t speak, didn’t laugh, didn’t play his piano, didn’t play, didn’t study anymore. Doctors started his physiotherapy to help his muscles and nerves to not wast and to make he able to continue to swallow.
2007, September
At San Raffaele Hospital Emanuele was operated again: they put his bone in his forehead and a pipe in his stomach to feed him.
Then they brought him to the hosipital in Lecco again: this time it was me and my mother who stayed there with Emanuele, instead my husband went to our house of Milan to stay with our daughter.
Since Emanuele needed not only physiotherapy but also speech therapy and assisted feeding, it is needed at least two persons there with him. Emanuele needed everything, so we couldn’t distract even one second.
2007, October 4th
I began a hunger strike to have more attention from Italian hospitals and institutions: I simply wanted to know if there is any place in the world where they can cure Emanuele or improve his condition.
People answered with many promises, but in truth nobody wants to help us, we are abandoned and alone. When we ask for informations and help, everyone closes his door. Everyone expects our resignation, it sounds like they say: “Bring your son home and get on with him! He will be so forever”.
I obtained just a few interviews in tv shows and magazines.
Fortunately, with the help of many good persons, we contacted some european and american hospitals and an english doctor who wakes patients from neurovegetative coma thanks to a special medication. We tryed it on Emanuele under medical control, but it didn’t work.
2007, December 12th
The hospital said they wanted to discharge Emanuele, but we thought it was impossibile, because we haven’t a suitable house! I began my second hunger strike and obtained Emanuele could stay in the hospital again.
Actually we knew an italian mother who was curing her son in Florida, Usa. Thanks to many friends and good persons, we obtained funds for his therapy there.
2008, April 22th
We left to Usa through a humanitarian fly organized by italian Air Force, who brought us to Fort Lauderdale. There Emanuele was cured like many other italian children: with oxygen therapy to give his neurons a suitable “fuel”, intensive physiotherapy to stimulate a possibile recovery, speech therapy to make him used to eat by hiself again, cranial-sacral therapy, useful to maintain his body and organs’ functionality. There Emanuele had many improvements.
2008, October 15th
Our funds ended and we had to come back to Italy with a humanitary fly again,
Now
Emanuele is at home. He needs many hours of health care, but our Institutions assure only a little part of them. We are doing our best to help our son, many persons and friends are helping us. Unfortunately this isn’t sufficient. We need funds. Emanuele’s essential necessities are really many.
My son Emanuele’s story began like all children’s stories. He grew out of a beautiful lovestory and grew in a common family, with his mother, father, older sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Emanuele was a child like all the others children, he was a little angel, full of life and things to do. He willingly went to school, and when he was 4 years old he began to play the piano, to study English, to practise Karate and to play football.
He was fond of astronomy and read Margherita Hack’s books (he named her “Stars’ lady”).
One day Emanuele watched a movie about Salvo D’Acquisto, a young italian carabiniere who sacrificed his own life to rescue 22 hostage of ruthless Nazis during the Second World War.
Emanuele began dreaming of becoming a carabiniere. He said a carabiniere has to speak English to make international investigations and also has to be a Karate champion to fight against his enemies. So, he studied and applied hiself at most.
Moreover, everyday he asked me for going to Salvo D’Acquisto’s memorial, in front of our town’s military police station (We live at Cologno Monzese, near Milan). Every September 23th (Salvo D’Acquisto’s heroic sacrifice’s anniversary) and every April 25th he brought there a bouquet.
2007, Spring
Emanuele was 6 years old. He was attending his first year at the primary school, he was diligent and happy, he loved studying and playing both. He was a sporty little boy, he ran at the Stramilano Marathon. He was waiting for May to have his second concert performance with his piano and to have his Karate’s orange belt.
2007, April 10th
My son Emanuele had stomach-ache. Our family doctor suggested us to go to the First Aid.
We did it. At San Raffaele’s Hospital in Milan, we had to wait about 8 hours to have all his visits done. Emanuele was afraid, because all things were new to him, he had never saw any doctor until that moment. Anyway, he forced himself to look serene, he wanted to act like a little man, having no one tantrum. But his look showed his anxiety. He trusted me, unfortunately. I am his mother!
Actually his diagnosis arrived: Appendicitis. Emanuele had to be operated immediately.
My husband and I accompanied him to the operatory room. Emanuele walked on his own healthy and strong legs to arrive there and he got on his stretcher by hiself. He was afraid but he never cryed. All was ready for his surgery, so I kissed him for the last time, then my husband and I went to wait for him in his room in the pediatrics unit.
With the passing of the hours, we became worried. After many hours, 4 doctors arrived to tell us about “a problem happened to Emanuele in the operatory room”: he had passed 15 minutes without oxygen in his brain. They didn’t say more and went away.
We didn’t understand: what did it happen? What kind of problem? What did they mean?
Intensive Care
Someone told us that Emanuele was in the Intensive Care Unit, so we ran there. We saw our little Emanuele had artifical respiration and many needles in all his poor body. His chest was blue because of the defibrillator. He was naked and tormented, covered only by a sheet like Jesus.
I thought: “I hope they didn’t leave him alone, I hope he didn’t suffer”. I didn’t realize it, I couldn’t accept it, i wondered: Why, why, why?
What happened?
Why did Emanuele pass 15 minutes without oxygen? Nobody knew, nobody knows yet. Without oxygen, bunches of his neurons died. It is at that point that all ended and all started.
4 days later
We was in a nightmare. Doctors had to bore Emanuele’s head to measure his CFS’s pressure. They found it was too much high and it was too much risky to Emanuele’s life. So they had to take his frontal bones away to make place for his floated brain.
Emanuele’s life was in danger for many months. They tryed to cure him with hypothermia, that is making his body’s temperature lower; they also made him transfusions and gave him many hard medications.
I will never forget his constant crying. I heard it everytime they opened the Intensive Care Unit’s doors: it was the only patient who cryed. He wanted his mother, but they didn’t allow me to stay close to him, because I could enter there only in authorized hours.
2007, May 28th: another hospital
Emanuele was moved to another hospital, named “La Nostra Famiglia of Bosisio Parini”, at Lecco. My husband and I had to put our 13 years old daughter into the hands of my parents at Milan, and to rent another apartment in this new town, Lecco, to can stay close to Emanuele.
In fact, we passed all days and nights in the hospital, relieving each other.
Emanuele’s forehead was too much floated because by now his brain was out from the cranial cavity and it hadn’t its normal size yet. Nobody helped us with money for rent, bills and so on.
Emanuele was constantly crying, maybe it was (and still is) his way to communicate to us. He ate through a probe. He didn’t speak, didn’t laugh, didn’t play his piano, didn’t play, didn’t study anymore. Doctors started his physiotherapy to help his muscles and nerves to not wast and to make he able to continue to swallow.
2007, September
At San Raffaele Hospital Emanuele was operated again: they put his bone in his forehead and a pipe in his stomach to feed him.
Then they brought him to the hosipital in Lecco again: this time it was me and my mother who stayed there with Emanuele, instead my husband went to our house of Milan to stay with our daughter.
Since Emanuele needed not only physiotherapy but also speech therapy and assisted feeding, it is needed at least two persons there with him. Emanuele needed everything, so we couldn’t distract even one second.
2007, October 4th
I began a hunger strike to have more attention from Italian hospitals and institutions: I simply wanted to know if there is any place in the world where they can cure Emanuele or improve his condition.
People answered with many promises, but in truth nobody wants to help us, we are abandoned and alone. When we ask for informations and help, everyone closes his door. Everyone expects our resignation, it sounds like they say: “Bring your son home and get on with him! He will be so forever”.
I obtained just a few interviews in tv shows and magazines.
Fortunately, with the help of many good persons, we contacted some european and american hospitals and an english doctor who wakes patients from neurovegetative coma thanks to a special medication. We tryed it on Emanuele under medical control, but it didn’t work.
2007, December 12th
The hospital said they wanted to discharge Emanuele, but we thought it was impossibile, because we haven’t a suitable house! I began my second hunger strike and obtained Emanuele could stay in the hospital again.
Actually we knew an italian mother who was curing her son in Florida, Usa. Thanks to many friends and good persons, we obtained funds for his therapy there.
2008, April 22th
We left to Usa through a humanitarian fly organized by italian Air Force, who brought us to Fort Lauderdale. There Emanuele was cured like many other italian children: with oxygen therapy to give his neurons a suitable “fuel”, intensive physiotherapy to stimulate a possibile recovery, speech therapy to make him used to eat by hiself again, cranial-sacral therapy, useful to maintain his body and organs’ functionality. There Emanuele had many improvements.
2008, October 15th
Our funds ended and we had to come back to Italy with a humanitary fly again,
Now
Emanuele is at home. He needs many hours of health care, but our Institutions assure only a little part of them. We are doing our best to help our son, many persons and friends are helping us. Unfortunately this isn’t sufficient. We need funds. Emanuele’s essential necessities are really many.
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