Crowdfunding Campaign Started for 7-Year Old RI Girl with Traumatic Brain Injury
Saturday, December 17, 2016
A fundraising effort has been started for a Rhode Island family to purchase a wheelchair-accessible van for their 7 year-old daughter, who suffered a devastating brain injury last summer.
Diane Silva is the mother to seven-year-old Ella, and shared with GoLocal her story, after family friend Jennifer Broady Zolkos launched the fundraising page. So far, the effort has raised nearly $1,000 towards the $60,000 goal.
Silva spoke with GoLocal of how her "bright, funny, stubborn, and perfectly normal five-year-old daughter" became confined to a wheelchair -- and how the family is hoping to provide her and her sister some normalcy.
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Ella's Story
"August 1 of last year, we went to a birthday party two houses down," said Silva. "The girls were so excited. A bunch of kids were swimming, and there was a small slide they were going down. Ella went down the slide and came up from the water screaming -- I've never heard that scream before in my life."
Silva explained how they rushed Ella to Hasbro Children's Hospital, where doctors discovered Ella didn't have a concussion or an aneurysm, but that she had arteriovenous malformation (AVM) -- a tangle of abnormal blood vessels connecting arteries and veins in the brain -- and that she had suffered a stroke.
"She never had any problems before," said Silva. "Suddenly, she had a drain in her brain, and we found out she had a stroke."
Silva explained how Ella was on a ventilator for thirty days and in intensive care at Hasbro for eight weeks, and then spent 95 days at Spaulding Rehabilitation Center in Massachusetts, before coming home two days before Christmas last year.
"I haven't gone back to work. This is my job," said Silva, of caring for Ella. "We've got a tribe that helps us through."
Silva said she and her family would like to raise enough money for a wheelchair accessible van so Ella and her older sister Chloe -- with whom she still shares a bedroom, thanks to a donation of not one but two medical beds by the Shriners -- can be able to sit side-by-side.
"Going forward, who knows," said Silva. "In ten years, Ella could go up to the dealership and throw the keys back at them and laugh. This is a marathon. This isn't a sprint."
Fundraising Message
Silva's friend Zolkos shared the following message about Ella on the GoFundMe page.
Ella is a beautiful, bright and extremely funny 6 year old girl. She has suffered a traumatic brain injury leaving her unable to walk thus requiring a wheel chair. This has been an emotional, physical and financial struggle for Ella's entire family. For Ella to be able to do the things she loves and visit the places and people that make her happy, her family needs to purchase a handicapped ready vehicle.
The cost for such a vehicle compounds the already insurmountable bills related to Ella's care.
Ella has a sister Chloe who is her best friend. We would love to see these girls be able to sit side by side in their travels laughing and having fun like sisters and little girls do.
Please help us make this happen for Ella so that she may be able to get to do all of the things she has always loved as well as have new adventures! Help spread the word!
Editor's Note: A previous version identified Ella as 6 years old; she is now 7.
