So back on July 10th 2025, Alessandro was moved from UCLA Children’s Hospital to Children’s Hospital of Orange County(CHOC).
He had his second Helicopter ride, Angie got the opportunity(not by choice) to fly along with him.
We didn’t know what to expect from CHOC other than Dr. Sinha performing a Lymphatic intervention procedure.
The Medical Staff and nurses on top of all the other resources were amazing to us and Alessandro. Everyone there knew him from “the boy with the amazing hair”. Names like baby Jack Jack from The Incredibles, Timmy Templeton from Boss Baby, Jimmy Newtron 90’s/00’s cartoon show, Johnny Bravo 90’s/00’s Cartoon show are some of the references tossed his way.
Since Radys San Diego, I took the time style his hair and it just stuck ever since. At Radys and UCLA the team did see his hair and did call him by these names but the stays here were short. CHOC knew about this special boy ahead of his arrival.
The wasn’t a single person at CHOC who didn’t feel in love with Alessandro…well who couldn’t. The long eye lashes, the cute chubby cheeks, and of course HIS AMAZING HAIR!
We got to finally meet Dr. Sinha, the lymphatic specialist of the west coast. We were hopeful that Alessandro’s chylothorax liquid would be taken care of through Dr. Sinha’s intervention procedure. Dr. Sinha did attempt on two different occasions to stop the Lymphatic system leak. First attempt Alessandro had a strange reaction to the anesthesia gas and the procedure was aborted. Second time around Dr. Sinha had a difficult time navigating his needle through Alessandro’s Lymphatic nerve system. He attempted to fill the leak with his “special oil” which he felt that it was a 50/50 chance of being a successful procedure.
Alessandro had the same chest from Radys at this point and it had been over 60 days. Dr. Sinha changed it out during the second attempt for a bigger chest tube line. At the end of the procedure Alessandro did have a small scare for us, thankfully the whole team was on stand by and he returned to the CVICU.
From here, Alessandro was being closely monitored by the whole team. Both UCLA and CHOC medical staff understood that Alessandro is a very delicate patient and we’re always in constant communication.
Alessandro had the lymphatic procedure done on 8/18/25 and he had been recovering well, the chest output had gone down by half. His vitals looked pretty consistent. After a few days his belly got distended and he started to look more uncomfortable. The team did all of their checks and balances.
It’s the morning of 8/26/25, I had gone back to work and Angie had tried to get a hold of me around 10am. Alessandro had cardiac arrhythmia going on. One of the nurses called me on my phone and advised that I should drive up to hospital immediately but safely.
Before the second attempt on the lymphatic system, we were told of the possibility that Alessandro being placed on the ECMO(Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) which is machine meant to help support the heart and lungs in an event of heart failure. Angie and I thought we were in the clear from since the procedure went well. Unfortunately with restrictive cardiomyopathy the pressures in his heart increased likely due to the lymphatic system intervention. This move saved Alessandro’s life and made it possible for us to get moved back to UCLA for the heart transplant.
Angie and I want to say thank you to everyone at CHCO for helping us and Alessandro during our stay. We had countless conversations and memories that we will never forget. Alessandro will be back to walk the halls of CHOC as a visitor soon.