Juliana Guida

On Tuesday, March 13th our crazy, happy, silly girl Juliana was admitted to Yale after what was said to be a normal virus over the weekend. She ended up with seizures and unconscious, an MRI showed brain hemorrhages and swelling.  Juliana was in intensive care for 2 weeks,  she is now on the step down unit of the PICU. Juliana has been tested for every disease, virus and illness known to mankind....just this week Dr's found she has an autoimmune disease associated with an MOG antibody in her blood.   Dr's from around the world were working together to figure out what was happening, why, and how to best treat it. They do not have any cases on record of children affected by this particular disease, it was only just recently discovered. Juliana is on a steroid treatment and will receive IVIG treatment every 2 weeks at Yale. The swelling is decreasing in her brain and she has started to regain movement in all four limbs again. She is still unable to speak, walk nor eat. She has a feeding tube, but has developed quite the addiction to haggen daz chocolate ice cream!  Jules has made amazing strides in just this past week alone, but it will be a long road of recovery. Currently we are awaiting her admission to a children's rehabilitation center in New York where she will have daily therapy to help her to walk again, and regain all her strength, this will require my brother to stay with her 24/7 and not work. My brother and sister in law have both been out of work for 3 weeks now, one has to return to keep the income coming in.  This has been an absolutely horrific ordeal for the whole family, especially since their older daughter was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia at 2 years old....we've been down this road as a family and community together before and we are doing it again but are so hopeful that our Jules will be home and back to herself sooner than later.  We appreciate all the thoughts, prayers, well wishes and donations from everyone that has reached out. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!