One mother is sharing the heartbreaking story of her 1-year-old baby’s battle against COVID-19 to encourage others to continue taking precautions against the virus.
The story comes as vaccinations ramp up and businesses and states begin to reopen since shutting down at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
"This is serious and it's killing people," Andrea Bell told “Good Morning America” as her daughter, Fiona, fights for her life. "Maybe you're not at risk, but I sure bet someone you love is."
"I never thought in a million years that I'd be sitting here," she added. "I never thought we'd have to experience COVID this closely, but I was wrong. I think people are tired and they're craving normalcy, but there's nothing normal about your child on ECMO."
ECMO is a treatment that pumps blood out of the body to a machine that sends oxygenated blood back into body tissue.
Bell is currently in isolation with her daughter at University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor. Fiona is breathing on a ventilator and is sedated.
Fiona was diagnosed with spina bifida in utero and hydrocephalus, a condition which causes a buildup of fluid in the brain, GMA reported. Fiona had a shunt surgically placed in her brain to release the fluid and pressure. Last summer, she also had a tracheostomy to improve her airway.
"The severity of what's happened to Fiona is not because of her spina bifida, it's because COVID basically ate through her right lung and that's what put her on ECMO," Bell added. "It's more so related to the tracheostomy. Any kid that has a trach is at a higher risk for respiratory things."
"She’s a remarkable little girl who always greets you with a smile and her family has played it incredibly safe throughout the pandemic," Kristen Padilla, Fiona’s pediatrician at Mott Children’s told "GMA."
"In Fiona’s case, the only thing that could have been done differently was to make sure every person she ever came into contact with was vaccinated,” she added. “It is my hope that people will see this beautiful toddler and realize that their actions can affect others.”
Bell said she encourages people to continue wearing masks and hopes Fiona's story inspires others to get the vaccine.
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