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Born at 24 weeks, Alex Ditota wasted no time entering the world! He was ready to get on with it!
All that energy translated into an active childhood. Riding his bike one day when he was 13 years old, Alex had an accident. His family took him to a local emergency department in the small town where they lived and to their relief, Alex was sent home with “nothing to worry about.”
But only a few days later, Alex became very sick. This time his parents took him to Baptist Health at the Beaches. Physicians there discovered that in his bike accident, the orbit around Alex’s eye had been broken. Since it had been left untreated for several days, infection had set in. Although immediate surgery was recommended, Alex was too ill to withstand the procedure. As hard as it was to watch Alex deteriorate, the family had no choice but to wait until Alex was stronger.
The voice of hope the family clung to during this excruciatingly difficult time was offered by Alex’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Phillipp Aldana.
As it turns out, surgery was only the beginning of a long battle. In fact, Alex has had three brain surgeries, three shunts placed in his head, not to mention having to learn to walk and talk all over again; in essence, having to re-learn everything he’d known before.
For five-and-a-half months, Alex “lived” in Wolfson. The medical staff became like a second family. Dr. Aldana and Pediatric Intensive Care head nurse Denise Walker became old friends. Among new friends were Ernest Wilford, Jaguar football player, who visited Alex and brought a football jersey which hung in Alex’s hospital room until the time it could take a place of honor in Alex’s bedroom at home.
Old friends –schoolmates at Bartram School – kept the Ditota family supplied with dinners, groceries and other necessities, and they also visited Alex weekly. The Bartram boys’ baseball team came to visit too…and when the team went to the district tournament, a high point for Alex was learning that they had dedicated what turned out to be the winning game to him.
In their own ways, both teams dedicated winners to Alex: the Bartram Baseball Team and the Wolfson Medical Team! |
