In our baby's illness, a life lesson
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0:01 - 0:03Francesca Fedeli: Ciao.
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0:03 - 0:06So he's Mario. He's our son.
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0:06 - 0:09He was born two and a half years ago,
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0:09 - 0:13and I had a pretty tough pregnancy
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0:13 - 0:17because I had to stay still in a bed for, like, eight months.
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0:17 - 0:20But in the end everything seemed to be under control.
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0:20 - 0:23So he got the right weight at birth.
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0:23 - 0:25He got the right Apgar index.
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0:25 - 0:28So we were pretty reassured by this.
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0:28 - 0:35But at the end, 10 days later after he was born,
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0:35 - 0:37we discovered that he had a stroke.
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0:37 - 0:39As you might know,
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0:39 - 0:42a stroke is a brain injury.
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0:42 - 0:44A perinatal stroke could be something
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0:44 - 0:48that can happen during the nine months of pregnancy
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0:48 - 0:51or just suddenly after the birth,
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0:51 - 0:54and in his case, as you can see,
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0:54 - 0:58the right part of his brain has gone.
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0:58 - 1:03So the effect that this stroke could have on Mario's body
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1:03 - 1:07could be the fact that he couldn't be able to control
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1:07 - 1:09the left side of his body.
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1:09 - 1:13Just imagine, if you have a computer and a printer
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1:13 - 1:17and you want to transmit, to input to print out a document,
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1:17 - 1:21but the printer doesn't have the right drives,
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1:21 - 1:24so the same is for Mario.
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1:24 - 1:27It's just like, he would like to move his left side
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1:27 - 1:31of his body, but he's not able to transmit the right input
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1:31 - 1:36to move his left arm and left leg.
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1:36 - 1:38So life had to change.
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1:38 - 1:40We needed to change our schedule.
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1:40 - 1:46We needed to change the impact that this birth had
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1:46 - 1:48on our life.
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1:48 - 1:50Roberto D'Angelo: As you may imagine,
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1:50 - 1:53unfortunately, we were not ready.
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1:53 - 1:57Nobody taught us how to deal with such kinds of disabilities,
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1:57 - 1:59and as many questions as possible started
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1:59 - 2:01to come to our minds.
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2:01 - 2:04And that has been really a tough time.
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2:04 - 2:06Questions, some basics, like, you know,
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2:06 - 2:08why did this happen to us?
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2:08 - 2:10And what went wrong?
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2:10 - 2:13Some more tough, like, really,
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2:13 - 2:15what will be the impact on Mario's life?
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2:15 - 2:16I mean, at the end, will he be able to work?
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2:16 - 2:18Will he be able to be normal?
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2:18 - 2:21And, you know, as a parent, especially for the first time,
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2:21 - 2:25why is he not going to be better than us?
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2:25 - 2:28And this, indeed, really is tough to say,
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2:28 - 2:31but a few months later, we realized that
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2:31 - 2:34we were really feeling like a failure.
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2:34 - 2:37I mean, the only real product of our life,
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2:37 - 2:39at the end, was a failure.
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2:39 - 2:45And you know, it was not a failure for ourselves in itself,
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2:45 - 2:50but it was a failure that will impact his full life.
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2:50 - 2:51Honestly, we went down.
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2:51 - 2:55I mean we went really down, but at the end,
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2:55 - 2:57we started to look at him,
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2:57 - 2:59and we said, we have to react.
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2:59 - 3:02So immediately, as Francesca said, we changed our life.
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3:02 - 3:05We started physiotherapy, we started the rehabilitation,
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3:05 - 3:07and one of the paths that we were following
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3:07 - 3:10in terms of rehabilitation is the mirror neurons pilot.
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3:10 - 3:14Basically, we spent months doing this with Mario.
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3:14 - 3:17You have an object, and we showed him
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3:17 - 3:19how to grab the object.
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3:19 - 3:22Now, the theory of mirror neurons simply says
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3:22 - 3:26that in your brains, exactly now, as you watch me doing this,
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3:26 - 3:28you are activating exactly the same neurons
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3:28 - 3:32as if you do the actions.
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3:32 - 3:36It looks like this is the leading edge in terms of rehabilitation.
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3:36 - 3:39But one day we found that Mario
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3:39 - 3:43was not looking at our hand.
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3:43 - 3:45He was looking at us.
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3:45 - 3:48We were his mirror.
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3:48 - 3:50And the problem, as you might feel,
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3:50 - 3:52is that we were down, we were depressed,
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3:52 - 3:54we were looking at him as a problem,
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3:54 - 3:59not as a son, not from a positive perspective.
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3:59 - 4:02And that day really changed our perspective.
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4:02 - 4:06We realized that we had to become
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4:06 - 4:08a better mirror for Mario.
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4:08 - 4:10We restarted from our strengths,
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4:10 - 4:14and at the same time we restarted from his strengths.
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4:14 - 4:17We stopped looking at him as a problem,
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4:17 - 4:21and we started to look at him as an opportunity to improve.
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4:21 - 4:24And really, this was the change,
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4:24 - 4:27and from our side, we said,
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4:27 - 4:30"What are our strengths that we really can bring to Mario?"
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4:30 - 4:31And we started from our passions.
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4:31 - 4:33I mean, at the end, my wife and myself
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4:33 - 4:34are quite different,
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4:34 - 4:37but we have many things in common.
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4:37 - 4:39We love to travel, we love music,
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4:39 - 4:41we love to be in places like this,
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4:41 - 4:43and we started to bring Mario with us
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4:43 - 4:47just to show to him the best things that we can show to him.
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4:47 - 4:53This short video is from last week.
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4:53 - 4:54I am not saying --
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4:54 - 4:56(Applause) —
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4:56 - 4:59I am not saying it's a miracle. That's not the message,
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4:59 - 5:01because we are just at the beginning of the path.
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5:01 - 5:05But we want to share what was the key learning,
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5:05 - 5:07the key learning that Mario drove to us,
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5:07 - 5:10and it is to consider what you have as a gift
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5:10 - 5:14and not only what you miss,
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5:14 - 5:18and to consider what you miss just as an opportunity.
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5:18 - 5:21And this is the message that we want to share with you.
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5:21 - 5:25This is why we are here.
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5:25 - 5:27Mario!
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5:27 - 5:28And this is why --
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5:28 - 5:33(Applause) —
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5:33 - 5:38And this is why
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5:38 - 5:44we decided to share the best mirror in the world with him.
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5:44 - 5:47And we thank you so much, all of you.
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5:47 - 5:49FF: Thank you.
RD: Thank you. Bye. -
5:49 - 5:53(Applause)
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5:53 - 5:58FF: Thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- In our baby's illness, a life lesson
- Speaker:
- Roberto D'Angelo + Francesca Fedeli
- Description:
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Roberto D'Angelo and Francesca Fedeli thought their baby boy Mario was healthy -- until at 10 days old, they discovered he'd had a perinatal stroke. With Mario unable to control the left side of his body, they grappled with tough questions: Would he be "normal?” Could he live a full life? The poignant story of parents facing their fears -- and how they turned them around.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 06:17
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for In our baby's illness, a life lesson | ||
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Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for In our baby's illness, a life lesson | ||
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Morton Bast edited English subtitles for In our baby's illness, a life lesson | ||
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