Daniela's Dream

Daniela was born with an inherited blood disease called Beta Thalassemia. For new friends who maybe didn't know that, Beta Thalassemia is also called "Cooley's Anemia", and is a chronic and sometimes fatal genetic blood disorder. This means that her bone marrow doesn't produce enough healthy red blood cells. If left untreated, she wouldn't be able to live. The treatment for Beta Thalassemia is regular blood transfusions, and Daniela must rely on the generosity of blood donors to survive. Daniela has a blood transfusion every 3 weeks at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford. With blood transfusions comes an overwhelming amount of iron into her body, which if left untreated would overtake her organs, and could lead to death. We recently started the next chapter of her treatment which is called Iron Chelation. Daniela takes a pill orally everyday, for the rest of her life. We have to have regular ear & eye testing, 2 MRI's a year, and a biopsy of her liver once a year.

Recently, Daniela's younger brother, Matteo, was diagnosed in November, 2017. Although he does not blood transfusions yet, he is currently on a medication that stabilizes his hemoglobin levels.

Thank you in advance for your continued support and love for our children and family! We can't wait to see everyone wearing the shirts, and spreading awareness for Beta Thalassemia!! For more information - please check out Daniela's Dream For a Cure on Facebook and @danielas_dream on instagram!