Welcome to Alanna’s Army Page!!

Alanna’s Army is participating in the Eversource Walk for Boston Children’s Hospital for the 6th year!!! To help bring lifesaving answers and hope to the sickest children from around the world. 

Alanna became a Boston Children’s Hospital patient in utero at 22 weeks, after discovering at my anatomy scan she had an omphalocele. For weeks I searched for the best care and surgeon for her. That’s when we came across Dr. Terry Buchmiller at Boston Children’s Hospital. We had countless meetings, appointments and tests to create the best plan & team for Alanna. Then in true Alanna fashion she was born prematurely at 35 weeks. After dealing with the many complications that the came with the early birth, Alanna was able to have her surgery at 13 days old. We worked on recuperating, learning to breathe on her own and taught to eat by mouth one ML at a time. After 43 days she was discharged home. At eight months we found that Alanna’s breathing was becoming labored so we brought her to get checked. Upon arriving at Boston Children’s Hospital she had an exam and chest x-ray. It was then she was diagnosed with a rare disease CDH. What that meant is that she had a hole in her diaphragm & that she would need emergency surgery to repair it. Before we could even comprehend what was going on we were handing our baby girl over for her second surgery. Luckily we live in a country that the survival rate is 60% for CDH while some other countries are a lot lower. No CDH case is the same some come with more complications than others. When Alanna was in the hospital a lot of the time she couldn’t breathe on her own, she was on a jet ventilator so her body could work on healing and give her lungs a break. Unfortunately with that can create dental caries on the baby teeth, which Alanna had. So in August 2022 Alanna had a 3rd surgery to have those extracted. Now with continued outpatient appointments, Alanna is defying all the odds and is a thriving 5.5 year old kindergartener and continues to grow with the unconditional love of her big brothers, Giovanti & Enzo,her friends & family that have supported her throughout this incredible journey.

Please consider a donation to support our fundraising efforts....because WE KNOW that when we band together, WE WILL help fund Boston Children’s Hospital exceptional care and groundbreaking research that can help every child including our daughter.

WE BELIEVE no parent should experience the loss of a child.

WE BELIEVE that by investing in the best doctors and scientists we can save lives today!