Miracles do happen

Bia and I feel we should tell you, Caregiver, a little about our story, as a way of explaining why we are so keen on helping you to feel in order to help cure.

About 25 years ago, we spent a great deal of our time looking for a cure to a congenital problem our daughter Bia presented at birth. It was first diagnosed as a hemangioma and treated as such until December 2006, when God placed Rafaela Calixto and her mother Izamar in our path.

We had known each other for a long time, because we used to see the same doctors and go to the same hospitals. We kept a friendly relationship and exchanged information for a long time, until we lost contact, due to several changes of address. We met again around Christmas, 2006, by chance, in São Paulo, in one of the floors of the huge AC Camargo Hospital complex, formerly called Hospital do Câncer, on Vergueiro [street]. And, low and behold, neither of us were supposed to have been there, since neither one had made a specific appointment with their doctors. We were there to give them their Christmas presents.

After the initial surprise was over, mother and daughter told us that they had been trying to reach us since they had come back from the United States, four months earlier. They were returning from a three-year stay marked by several surgeries performed by Dr. James Suen’s blessed hands; and Rafaela, fully cured. They had fervently wished Bia the same. In that same night, in her Hadock Lobo apartment, “Rafinha” took shots of Bia, from several angles, e-mailed them to Dr. Suen, and called him to tell him that they had “finally found the girl from Curitiba”.

From then on, Dr. Suen asked us for all kinds of exams for Bia – from the time she was three years old until that date – and gave us hope. He also asked us the question: would you accept being a case in Discovery Channel Health? It is a very successful recently launched American TV series that documents extremely difficult medical cases. It was January 12, 2007. From then on, things happened in vertiginous speed: the Discovery team arrived, headed by producer Brent Henderson, with Brian Sewell and Ivan Capeller to shoot Bia, family, and friends. The hectic preparation for the trip – lots of it – was less stressful thanks to the help of an “army” of friends. We arrived in Little Rock on March 1, after a 16-hour trip, and the surgery was scheduled for March 9. ]

We can guarantee you that miracles do happen. And we wholeheartedly wish that you will get yours, too.