Help Daniela's fight against BT!

Daniela is at Connecticut Children's Medical Center every 2-3 weeks for blood transfusions to help her live. Along with those and prior hospitalization bills, she'll also need several different tests and procedures many times a year, including MRI's. She will also soon start a prescription for Iron Chelation therapy to deal with her transfusion iron overload, which costs $100/day for her 1 pill! Lastly, she'll require several future surgeries, including a splendectomy and possible "port" cathertization implant, and may also one day potentially need either bone marrow or stem cell transplantation. Insurance is covering most of her medical expenses; but deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pocket expenses add up to more than her family can easily handle. So, along with blood donations, or for people who may want to help but can't donate blood, we're asking for any donation anyone would like to make in her honor, to help ensure she stays as healthy as possible, and gets all the treatment and care she needs. Any additional or extra proceeds will be put towards donations to the Cooley's Anemia Foundation, to help other people like Daniela suffering from this blood disorder.

Her story:

Recently our daughter Daniela was diagnosed with a rare genetic blood disorder, called Beta Thalassemia, or "Cooley's Anemia". She's just 15 months old. It's a condition that affects roughly 1 in over 100,000:or only about a couple thousand people in this country. It's a manageable disorder, treated with monthly blood transfusions for the rest of her life ( she gets transfused every 2-3 weeks ), since she can't make enough healthy red blood cells on her own. She spent several days in the E.R., and had 7 transfusions to save her life at CCMC. A bad side effect of so many transfusions is iron overload, with has to be treated with chelation therapy for life as well. She should live a long mostly normal life, but will need to rely on the generosity of strangers to keep her alive. Something that, as a parent, makes you really appreciate blood donation and blood drives a whole lot more. Basically, Daniela will have someone save her life:every month, every year:for the rest of her life. That's 12+ different strangers:heroes:every year, for as long as she lives. Amazing to think about how many people will touch her life, and ours, without ever knowing it.

Another way to help:


We're asking anybody that is healthy and can donate blood, to please do so:not just for our daughter, but for the countless others who need it every day. You never know whose life you'll be saving:it could be Daniela's, or it could be one of your own loved ones. It's such a simple, easy, selfless way that you can do good, have a positive impact in the world:AND SAVE LIVES!!!