12-year-old Ella Casano is fighting back against her medical condition by creating an adorable ‘Medi Teddy’ that she wants to share with other children in hospital.
Ella Casano
Ella Casano was diagnosed with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) when she was only seven. ITP is an immune disorder in which the blood doesn’t clot normally. It is caused by an unusually low level of platelets, or thrombocytes, in the blood and can cause excessive bruising and bleeding.
Children develop ITP after a viral infection and usually recover quickly but unfortunately, this has not been the case with Ella. She hasn’t yet recovered and needs to receive an IVIG infusion every eight weeks to combat her low platelet count.
Medi Teddy
Ella still feels uncomfortable seeing all the tubes, needles and IV bags during her hospital appointments. During one of her treatments, she decided to create something to cover up the medical equipment. She invented the Medi Teddy, a bear-shaped IV cover with a pouch at the back to contain the IV medication.
“When I had my first infusion, I was surprised and a little bit intimidated by the amount of tubing and medical equipment on my IV pole. As I saw more and more children experiencing the same feelings, I became more interested in creating a friendlier experience for young IV patients, so I created Medi Teddy.” she wrote on her website.
Ella has a patent for the Medi Teddy but she doesn’t aim to profit from it. Instead, she is in the process of creating 500 Medi Teddies to be given out free to other kids going through similar experiences.
If you would like to support Ella in her mission to make hospitals a bit friendlier, you can visit her GoFundMe campaign.
This innovative young girl is making a big difference where she can. Inside each and every one of us there are creative concepts God has given us to discover. Ella is an inspiration to us to find out what they are.
We pray for Ella that God will bring His healing power into her life and may her project to bless other children be a huge success.
This post was written by Rhoda Gayle
Reference: FaithPanda and Medi Teddy
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