Our Precious Gabriella

Like so many common ailments that we encounter with our children, this one seemed no different.  Gabriella called from school to say she wasn’t feeling well.  She said she had some chest discomfort and a little trouble breathing.  As any concerned parent would do, we got her to the doctor’s office to get her examined.  Her doctor asked a lot of routine questions, poked around her chest a bit looking for pain points, and basically wrote it off as a common chest cold.  We had no idea that our daughter was in the beginning stages of a lethal virus called Viral Myocarditis.  Had the doctor been more thorough and called for more tests it might have saved Gabriella’s life.

The next day she felt well enough to go to school, but again called from school to say she was really fatigued and was again having some trouble getting her breath. We got her home and she said she felt better lying down and opted to lie down on her bed.  We had to pick up her brother at school and then were going to bring her to the hospital for further testing when she passed.  We, as her parents want to save other parents the anguish we felt in losing our daughter to this unknown ailment. We want to let the medical community know that it is out there and can kill if not checked properly.  Will you help us by becoming part of Gabriella’s Army and participating in getting the information out to the medical community and by helping to raise both money and awareness.