Speak Now For Kids

The following children will participate at 2018 Speak Now for Kids Family Advocacy Day from June 26-27 in Washington, D.C. During the event, they will share information about their health journeys and the importance of children’s health care with members of Congress.

We first met Kelsey when she represented Dayton Children's Hospital at the 2015 Speak Now for Kids Family Advocacy Day. Now 21 years old, she is currently studying elementary education at Sinclair Community College and plans to become a special education teacher.

In most households a week before Christmas is filled with excitement and anticipation for the upcoming holiday. However, in 2000 none of these things were felt by my family. Instead, we were learning what blood glucose is, how to give an insulin shot, and how to precisely count carbohydrates, all of the things that would become a daily ritual. When I was 4 years old, my parents were given the first of multiple diagnoses, “Your daughter has Type 1 Diabetes.” Five words that would changes our lives in an instant.

Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the white blood cells destroy cells in the pancreas called beta cells, which are the cells that produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is used to digest carbohydrates and turn them into energy.  

#WhatsUpWednesday is our chance to hear from the teens and young adults who are involved with the Speak Now for Kids community. This week’s post will focus on 22-year-old Khalil. You may remember Khalil from his participation in this year’s Speak Now for Kids Family Advocacy Day.

So Khalil......what’s up?

Tom represented Franciscan Children’s Hospital at last week’s Speak Now for Kids Family Advocacy Day event in Washington, D.C.

Born four months premature, weighing 1 pound 5 ounces with a height of 11 inches, Tom immediately faced tough odds. His organs weren’t fully developed, he could not breathe on his own and his retinas were not fused leaving him legally blind. Tom underwent many surgeries and spent a total of 119 days in the NICU before he was healthy enough to go home to his family with the ability to breathe on his own and without the need for any medication.

“The doctors thought I was going to die… but I didn’t… I am a fighter,” proclaims Tom.

North Brunswick resident Khalil Pereira, 22, was in a car accident while driving home from college and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. He was 18 years old at the time and in his first year of college.

He spent weeks in intensive care and another six months at Children’s Specialized Hospital’s acute inpatient rehabilitation facility in New Brunswick, learning to walk, talk, eat, breathe on his own, and regain control of his body. He relied on Medicaid to cover cranioplasty surgery, neurosurgeon visits, outpatient therapies, transportation and other care vital to his recovery.

TAMPA, Fla., July 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This week, 12-year-old Natalia Ricabal joined nearly 50 other pediatric patients from across the United States on Capitol Hill to urge their members of Congress to protect, not cut, children's Medicaid funding as proposed in recently introduced federal bills, the American Health Care Act of 2017 and the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017.

Natalia was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, in August 2013. Her treatment required multiple surgeries, including a limb salvage procedure in which her femur was replaced with a cadaver bone, a year of aggressive chemotherapy, a month of daily radiation treatment, and substantial physical therapy.

Her family traveled to Washington D.C. as part of the Children's Hospital Association's annual Family Advocacy Day. The July 11-14 trip included one-on-one meetings with U.S. Representatives Gus Bilirakis, Vern Buchanan, Kathy Castor, Charlie Crist, Dennis Ross, Darren Soto and Senator Bill Nelson; a tour of Washington D.C.; and a celebratory dinner to honor the children and their families.

Zoey Nidhi was born in Mumbai, India, with achondroplasia — a form of skeletal dysplasia. Zoey receives much of her care at two hospitals; locally, she goes to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, and for care related to achondroplasia, Zoey travels with her family to A.I. Dupont / Nemours in Wilmington, Delaware.

Lela was just 6-weeks old when her mother noticed Lela’s eye didn’t look right when at a certain moment a ray of light caught Lela’s eye. They were immediately referred to St. Jude Research Hospital where she was diagnosed with an advanced case of the eye cancer retinoblastoma. Lela was 8-weeks old when her left eye was removed and she was treated for two tumors in her right eye. Before Lela was diagnosed, her parents thought of cancer as an “older person's disease.”

Natalia was having intermittent leg pain for several weeks. According to her mother, Natalia’s older brother had been having nightly growing pains—but hers seemed to be different somehow. After a night of extreme pain and her pediatrician subsequently noticing raised bumps on her leg, eight-year-old Natalia underwent an MRI and was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma—a rare form of bone cancer. Suddenly, her focus in life turned from the normal jitters of starting at a new school to wondering if she would ever walk again.

Kyle was 5-months-old when his grandfather noticed that he was following people with his eyes, but not turning his head. He was subsequently diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a genetic disease affecting the part of the nervous system that controls voluntary muscle movement. Over the next several years, Kyle was in and out of acute care facilities, with pulmonary and other medical issues.