Contents 4
Do No Harm: Celebrating a Safety Milestone, Aiming for Perfection
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Special Needs. Remarkable Workers.
12
Whole Family Care
16
Rising from Ashes, Ringing in Hope
20
Advocating for the Most Vulnerable Among Us
Spira Spira is the biannual magazine of Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, 8200 Dodge St., Omaha, NE 68114. Spira@ChildrensOmaha.org SpiraMagazine.org
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1.2017
RISING FROM ASHES,
RINGING IN HOPE
In May 2016, Izabella Voelker was planning her funeral and writing a will. The vivacious 12-year-old from Holstein, Neb., had been diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive type of brain cancer. After initially experiencing headaches and severe elbow pain, tests at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center revealed a tumor in the middle of Izabella’s brain. The very next day, pediatric neurosurgeon Mark Puccioni, M.D., went in to drain fluid that had built up in her brain and get tissue for a biopsy of the tumor. The results showed the mass to be a pineoblastoma; these account for less than one percent of all primary brain tumors. 17