A beautiful blonde girl, eight years old and grinning from ear-to-ear, bounces down the stairs. Sheās in a nightgown with her hair pulled back and sheās carrying an iPad thatās playing an animated music video about ice cream.
When she reaches the bottom of the staircase, she plops herself on the barstool closest to herāher stool; thatās a lesson her cousin learned the hard way, having been pushed from it, when his young cousin decided to take a load off.
By all accounts, this little girl looks and acts like a regular eight-year-old. She plays, she smiles and she loves horses, skiing and swimming, as well as her two brothers, Angelo and Thomas.
But, looks can be deceiving.
Bella Tiesenhausen isnāt a regular eight-year-old.
Bella has Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy. She was diagnosed before her second birthday. That was the day her familyās world came crashing down.
Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy is caused by insufficient oxygen to the brain. For Bella, this occurred during her last weeks in the womb, when her umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around her neck. The result is cerebral palsy, a non-progressive impairment of motor functions that causes physical disability as a child develops.
In Bellaās case, it has caused developmental delaysāshe currently functions at the level of a two-year-oldādeficient gross and fine motor skills, neural-developmental delay and cognitive impairment.
To this day, the petite blue-eyed girl has never spoken a word.
Three years ago, at the age of five, Bellaās future was bleak. Her doctors could give little hope or assurance that anything would ever improve.
Unhappy with the outlook, Bellaās parents began looking elsewhere for help.
āWe knew at the time that we had to look at alternatives because not doing anything meant we were losing our child, or we had already lost her, because we were never going to gain anything more,ā remembers Bellaās mom, Connie Tiesenhausen. āWe had talked to our neurologist about stem cells and he said it was just too earlyāeverything was experimental.ā
Although stem cell research was just entering clinical trials in Canada, Connie kept researching and āquite by chanceā came across a clinic in Germany.
It was there in 2010 that Bellaās stem cells were harvested from her hip and then reintroduced into her body through an IV.
āWe actually didnāt tell anybody when we went because we didnāt want any of Bellaās Kindergarten teachers to know, we didnāt want speech therapists to know, we didnāt want physio to know, because we wanted a really clean picture from them if they thought it had helped.ā
Sure enough, after a few months, when Connie and her husband Hjalmar met with the entire therapy team, āthey said, āWow. When you guys came back from holidays, that rest really did quite some good for Bella, because now sheās doing things sheās never done before.āā
Almost overnight, Bella had gone from being an introvert, wrapped up in her own worldānot even flinching when a door slammed right beside herāto engaging with the students in her class. She began communicating, using her hands to gesture and point. She began paying attention to what was happening around her and she was suddenly able to understand multi-step commands.
āBefore we went she would only do one-step commands, like pick up the toy. Then after we went we could say, āPick up the toy, Bella, and go put it in your toy box in your room,ā and she would do it.
āIt sounds like something so simple for somebody whoās five, but it was huge for her because she was never able to do that.ā
Since the success of that first treatment, the Tiesenhausens have been planning to take Bella for a follow-up, but it wasnāt until she started āboltingā that the family accelerated the search for the right clinic.
āBellaās getting fast and sheās getting big and sheās becoming quite a physical force to reckon with,ā said Connie, noting that it can sometimes take an hour just to get Bella into the car after school because she runs off as soon as sheās out of the building.
This is especially concerning because Bella is unaware of the dangers around her, like traffic, water, wild animals, severe weather or strangers, and, because of her impaired communication, sheās unable to call out for help.
āLast year at school, she bolted and panic set in very quickly,ā remembers Connie. āItās terrifying when you have a child who could possibly get lost and she canāt even say her name.
āFortunately, with the help of other parents, we found her, but that 15 minutes seemed like a lifetime.ā
In hopes of improving Bellaās cognition, so she can recognize these dangers, the Tiesenhausens did extensive researchātalking to doctors and parents of children who have undergone the treatmentsāand settled on a clinic in Panama.
Bella, Connie and their close family friend, Marla Pollock, will travel there tomorrow, Oct. 4, for a week of treatments.
āIām not afraid of the procedure at all,ā said Connie, thinking ahead to the trip. āI feel very comfortable with that based on all of the mother researchāif you willāthat Iāve done.ā
The stem cells that will be transplanted into Bellaās body next week will come from a donor.
The cost of the week-long treatment is $16,500. With the cost of travel, accommodation and food, Connie expects the total expenses will be around $23,000.
To assist with the costs, Wild Orchid Salon and Spa held a fundraiser called Beauty for Bella on Sept. 24.
On that day, the salon raised $5,000, by hosting a raffle of items donated by local businesses and donating all of its proceeds and gratuities to the Tiesenhausen family.
A few days later, Jasper Rock and Jade also held a fundraiser, donating all of its proceeds from the dayās fudge sales to the family.
āThe town itself, the community, is so awesome and pulls together when people need help and we feel really grateful for that,ā said Connie.
Over the years, the family has also received support from the Jasper Volunteer Fire Brigade, the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge Bellmanās Auction, the Lionās Club and friends and family.
āWithout all of them, life would be even more difficult.ā
As the treatment draws closer, Connie said although sheās not scared for Bella, she's anxious about what could be.
āWhat keeps me up at night is what may possibly be or what could be, what might happen.
āIām hoping mostly for her cognition and some speech.
āMy god, if she says āMamaā or when she says it, I think Iāll be a puddle for days. Thatās something that a lot of parents take for granted and donāt really understand.ā
