It was past midnight, much later than Tricia Bucci’s normal bedtime.
As she did most work nights, the mom of three had turned in early, but a “feeling of weird anxiety” had left her restless.
Awake and frustrated, Tricia got up to watch a movie with her 15-year-old daughter, Olivia, who had not been feeling well that day.
“She left the room to grab a snack,” Tricia recounted.
“A few minutes later, I heard snoring. I went to the kitchen to see what was going on and found her face-down in front of the open fridge. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d gone to sleep that night.”
In respiratory failure, Olivia was placed on a ventilator and spent the next 12 days under the care of an “exceptional team” of doctors and nurses in the Yale New Haven Hospital pediatric ICU.
Her parents described the following days as “scary” and “touch-and-go,” a situation exacerbated by talk of encephalopathy, brain damage caused by lack of oxygen, and emergency surgery to place a chest tube.
“Yale was amazing. They saved her life. But only time could tell how much she would recover,” said father Tom.
A Star Student, Silenced
Olivia remembers waking up at Yale Hospital where, she says, she had “no clue where I was, or why I was there.”
Unable to move or talk, she communicated by blinking her eyes, a stark contrast to the athletic, vivacious teen her parents knew.
A studious sophomore at Lauralton Hall, Olivia was a member of the school’s debate and mock trial teams and was enrolled in all honors classes. She excelled at field hockey and was about to try out for her school’s tennis team and debut in her first school play when everything came to a grinding halt.
Tricia and Tom's top priority was to help their daughter “return to herself as much as possible.”
When deciding on a facility for Olivia’s inpatient therapy, they insisted on Gaylord, a hospital, they said, that had a “great reputation for miracles.”
“The Sky’s the Limit”
Mom Tricia recalled Olivia’s first day at Gaylord.
“She couldn’t eat or walk. She could barely speak, but she was grateful to be alive and she was motivated to put in the hard work.”
Though Olivia’s daily schedule was filled with back-to-back therapies – physical, occupational, speech, aquatic, and high-intensity gait training – the 15-year-old asked her therapists to push her even harder and requested additional sessions.
“She’s unstoppable,” her dad remarks.
Throughout her stay, Olivia benefited from many of Gaylord’s technologies, including the ZeroG body weight support system that helped her take her first steps, the Ekso Bionics wearable exoskeleton to refine and strengthen her gait, and a new electrical stimulation device that’s helping her to open and close her affected hand.
Olivia teases her therapists throughout the day, laughing both with them – and at them – as only a teen can. Though she loves them all, one team member ranks as her favorite: Mandy, Gaylord’s Canine Companions facility dog who works with her in therapy, running beside her, playing fetch, and tug of war, all therapeutic exercises under the guise of playing.
In a few days, Olivia will return home where she plans on continuing her recovery journey with Gaylord outpatient therapy.
Tricia and Tom marvel at the incredible progress their daughter has made over the last two months, a testament, they said, to Yale’s life-saving care, Gaylord's rehab expertise, and Olivia’s own work ethic.
“When I think of how far she’s come from a month ago, I realize that the sky is the limit,” said Tom.
“This whole experience reminded us to never take anything for granted. Love your kids hard. Every day.”