Extraordinary Mom Melanie Dragovits

nominated by friend, Heather Munao

               Melanie with girls Elizabeth and Angelina

Why are you Nominating this Mom:

My friend Melanie found out halfway through her pregnancy that her daughter had spinabifida- a developmental birth defect involving the neural tube. The neural tube has an incomplete closure of the embryonic neural tube results in an incompletely formed spinal cord

Not long after baby Elizabeth was born… Elizabeth stopped breathing and had the first of many emergency surgeries. Over time she had hydrocephalus (fluid in her brain) as a result of her spina bifida, she had a shunt in her head which diverts the fluid to her abdomen and causes severe bowel problems requiring a catheter, she had a complex condition of her brain called a Chiari malformation, and a tracheotomy tube due to stenosis (narrow trachea).

Elizabeth has been through several long and intensive hospitalizations and emergency surgeries. Many times we thought we were losing her.

Through all this, Melanie has taught me what it means to be a mother. She did "common" things such as give up her teaching career to be with Elizabeth and still paying the costly expenses of COBRA medical coverage.

However, Melanie has done infinitely more to advocate for her daughter and help others. She has diligently researched and found the best specialists in the country for Elizabeth. She has never taken "no" for an answer from a hospital or insurance, making phone calls and writing letters.

To make sure Elizabeth still met developmental milestones, Melanie taught both her daughters American Sign Language so that the family could communicate (the trach. tube prevented Elizabeth from speaking).Most recently, Melanie and her husband decided they would sell their house in Florida and move to Chicago to be closer to the specialists. Melanie has been involved in fundraisers for the Hydrocephalus Family Support Group.

The absolute most extraordinary contribution she has made was producing a video for parents of children with tracheotomy tubes. Knowing how intimidating cleaning and managing the trach tube and area is, Melanie and her husband made an informational, step-by-step video to instruct and reassure parents on the care of the tube.

This is an excellent example of the type of useful resources that can be found on the Internet. With the continued advancements in medicine and technology, which are changing at such a rapid rate, it is important to find resources that can provide educational information for patients. That is the goal of “PatientEducation”, which provides many useful patient education videos on many useful topics.

To learn more about Melanie's educational video, click here.

A Few Fun Facts:

Melanie loves Elvis Presley!

Her family is ALL girls-- 5 daughters, plus Melanie's 2 daughters.

The Bumble Collection, along with Heather Munao, are very proud to highlight Melanie Dragovits and her accomplishments, and feature her as our extraordinary mom of the month!

Heather Munao and Melanie Dragovits both received special prize packages from The Bumble Collection.

Do you know someone who is an extraordinary mom like Melanie? Click on the submission form below.

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