Joe modica @Joeemoee - Twitter Profile

3 days ago

Dear Bill, I know you probably receive countless messages, and I know there is a very good chance this one may never reach you. But after hearing you speak about Lucy and learning about what you and Neri are building through the Ackman Oxman Institute, I felt compelled to reach out. Not because I am looking for something. But because I think our families may understand something that is very difficult to explain to people who have never lived through a catastrophic brain injury. My daughter Ali was four years old when influenza led to a cardiac arrest and a devastating hypoxic brain injury. She was placed on ECMO and survived something we were never sure she would survive. Today she is seven. Her life looks very different than it did before that day. But something happened along the way that changed the way we think about recovery. We stopped measuring hope by what doctors could promise us. We started measuring it by what Ali continued to show us. Every tiny movement. Every new sound. Every second she can hold her head up. Every step she takes with help. Every time she does something we weren’t sure she would ever do again. None of these things are guarantees. But they are reminders that the brain is complicated, that recovery is not always predictable, and that there may still be possibilities we haven’t discovered. My husband Joe works for Bloomberg, and Mike and his team have been incredibly kind to our family. They have helped us through hurdles that we never imagined we would have to face. That experience taught us something we will never forget. Sometimes hope comes from people who simply decide to help you keep moving forward when the road seems impossible. That’s why what you and Neri are doing means something to me. You are taking something deeply personal and turning it into an opportunity to create hope for countless other families. Families who are sitting in hospitals right now. Families learning words like hypoxic brain injury, stroke, hemorrhage, coma and rehabilitation. Families wondering whether their child will ever smile again, speak again, stand again, walk again, or simply become more of who they were before. We have learned not to promise those families an outcome. But we can give them something else. Hope. We continue to pursue rehabilitation and emerging therapies for Ali, including exploring MUSE cell therapy as our next potential treatment. We know there is still much to learn. We know that not every treatment will work. But we also believe that progress only happens when people are willing to ask, “What if?” What if there is more recovery possible? What if the brain can do more than we currently understand? What if today’s impossible becomes tomorrow’s standard of care? Those questions are why your work matters. Ali is just one little girl. There are thousands of children and adults like her whose families are desperately hoping that science will move faster. I hope the work you and Neri are beginning gives those families something they desperately need. Not false promises. Not guarantees. Just a reason to keep believing that there may be more. Because sometimes, hope is what gets a family through the next day. And sometimes, hope is where breakthroughs begin. With gratitude and hope, Joe modica

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Joe modica

@Joeemoee

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