Roberto D'Angelo + Francesca Fedeli: In our baby's illness, a life lesson

Traductor: Mariela Rodio Revisor: Daniel Sainz

Francesca Fedeli: Ciao.

Francesca Fedeli: Ciao.

So he's Mario. He's our son.

Este es Mario, nuestro hijo.

He was born two and a half years ago,

Nació hace dos años y medio.

and I had a pretty tough pregnancy

Tuve un embarazo muy difícil

because I had to stay still in a bed for, like, eight months.

porque tuve que quedarme en cama unos ocho meses.

But in the end everything seemed to be under control.

Pero finalmente todo parecía estar bajo control.

So he got the right weight at birth.

Pesaba lo apropiado al nacer.

He got the right Apgar index.

Un índice apropiado de Apgar.

So we were pretty reassured by this.

Y esto nos dio cierta tranquilidad.

But at the end, 10 days later after he was born,

Pero finalmente, 10 días después del nacimiento,

we discovered that he had a stroke.

descubrimos que había sufrido un accidente cerebrovascular.

As you might know,

Como saben,

a stroke is a brain injury.

un ACV es un derrame cerebral.

A perinatal stroke could be something

Un ACV perinatal es algo

that can happen during the nine months of pregnancy

que puede suceder durante los nueve meses del embarazo

or just suddenly after the birth,

o repentinamente luego del parto,

and in his case, as you can see,

y en su caso, como pueden ver,

the right part of his brain has gone.

la parte derecha de su cerebro había desaparecido.

So the effect that this stroke could have on Mario's body

El ACV podía suponer para Mario

could be the fact that he couldn't be able to control

la pérdida de la capacidad para controlar

the left side of his body.

el costado izquierdo de su cuerpo.

Just imagine, if you have a computer and a printer

Imagínense, si tuviesen una computadora y una impresora

and you want to transmit, to input to print out a document,

y tuviesen que enviar un documento para imprimir,

but the printer doesn't have the right drives,

pero la impresora no tiene los controladores correctos,

so the same is for Mario.

lo mismo le sucede a Mario.

It's just like, he would like to move his left side

Es como si quisiese mover el costado izquierdo

of his body, but he's not able to transmit the right input

de su cuerpo, pero no le es posible enviar la orden

to move his left arm and left leg.

para mover su brazo y su pierna izquierdas.

So life had to change.

Tuvimos que cambiar nuestras vidas

We needed to change our schedule.

y nuestros horarios.

We needed to change the impact that this birth had

Adaptarnos al impacto que su nacimiento había tenido

on our life.

en nuestras vidas.

Roberto D'Angelo: As you may imagine,

Roberto D'Angelo: Como pueden imaginar,

unfortunately, we were not ready.

lamentablemente no estábamos preparados.

Nobody taught us how to deal with such kinds of disabilities,

Nadie nos había enseñado a lidiar con este tipo de discapacidad.

and as many questions as possible started

Empezaron a surgir

to come to our minds.

muchísimas preguntas.

And that has been really a tough time.

Fue un momento muy difícil.

Questions, some basics, like, you know,

Preguntas básicas, como,

why did this happen to us?

¿por qué nos pasó esto a nosotros?,

And what went wrong?

¿qué salió mal?

Some more tough, like, really,

Algunas más duras, como,

what will be the impact on Mario's life?

¿cuál va a ser el impacto en la vida de Mario?

I mean, at the end, will he be able to work?

Quiero decir, ¿trabajará?

¿Llevará una vida normal?

Will he be able to be normal?

And, you know, as a parent, especially for the first time,

Para un padre, especialmente primerizo,

why is he not going to be better than us?

¿por qué no va a poder ser mejor que nosotros?

And this, indeed, really is tough to say,

Sin duda, es muy difícil de explicar,

but a few months later, we realized that

pero meses después, nos dimos cuenta de que

we were really feeling like a failure.

sentíamos que habíamos fracasado.

I mean, the only real product of our life,

El único fruto auténtico de nuestras vidas

at the end, was a failure.

resultó un fracaso.

And you know, it was not a failure for ourselves in itself,

No era un fracaso para nosotros,

but it was a failure that will impact his full life.

sino un fracaso que afectaría toda su vida.

Honestly, we went down.

Sinceramente, nos deprimimos.

I mean we went really down, but at the end,

Nos deprimimos profundamente, hasta que finalmente

we started to look at him,

comenzamos a mirarlo

and we said, we have to react.

y nos dijimos: debemos reaccionar.

So immediately, as Francesca said, we changed our life.

Inmediatamente, cambiamos nuestras vidas.

We started physiotherapy, we started the rehabilitation,

Comenzamos la fisioterapia y la rehabilitación,

and one of the paths that we were following

con un proyecto piloto

in terms of rehabilitation is the mirror neurons pilot.

con neuronas espejo.

Basically, we spent months doing this with Mario.

Pasamos meses enteros haciendo esto con Mario.

You have an object, and we showed him

Le enseñábamos

how to grab the object.

cómo agarrar un objeto.

Now, the theory of mirror neurons simply says

La teoría de las neuronas espejo explica que

that in your brains, exactly now, as you watch me doing this,

en sus cerebros, ahora mismo, mientras me ven,

you are activating exactly the same neurons

están activando las mismas neuronas

as if you do the actions.

que se activarían si realizaran la acción.

It looks like this is the leading edge in terms of rehabilitation.

Parece ser el mejor tratamiento de rehabilitación.

But one day we found that Mario

Pero un día descubrimos que Mario

was not looking at our hand.

no estaba mirando nuestras manos.

He was looking at us.

Nos estaba mirando a nosotros.

We were his mirror.

Nosotros éramos su espejo.

And the problem, as you might feel,

Y el problema, como podrán adivinar,

is that we were down, we were depressed,

era que estábamos deprimidos,

we were looking at him as a problem,

y lo veíamos como un problema,

not as a son, not from a positive perspective.

no como un hijo, no desde una perspectiva positiva.

And that day really changed our perspective.

Y ese día cambió nuestra perspectiva.

We realized that we had to become

Descubrimos que debíamos ser

a better mirror for Mario.

un mejor espejo para Mario.

We restarted from our strengths,

Comenzamos desde nuestras fortalezas.

and at the same time we restarted from his strengths.

y desde las suyas.

We stopped looking at him as a problem,

Dejamos de verlo como un problema,

and we started to look at him as an opportunity to improve.

para verlo como una oportunidad para mejorar.

Y este fue el verdadero cambio.

And really, this was the change,

and from our side, we said,

Nosotros nos preguntamos:

¿qué fortalezas podemos enseñarle a Mario?

"What are our strengths that we really can bring to Mario?"

And we started from our passions.

Nuestras pasiones.

I mean, at the end, my wife and myself

Mi epsosa y yo

are quite different,

somos muy diferentes,

pero tenemos muchas cosas en común.

but we have many things in common.

We love to travel, we love music,

Nos encanta viajar, la música,

we love to be in places like this,

venir a lugares como TED,

and we started to bring Mario with us

y comenzamos a traer a Mario

just to show to him the best things that we can show to him.

para enseñarle lo mejor.

This short video is from last week.

Este es un video breve de la semana pasada.

No estoy diciendo que...

I am not saying --

(Applause) —

(Aplausos)

I am not saying it's a miracle. That's not the message,

No estoy diciendo que sea un milagro. Ese no es el mensaje,

because we are just at the beginning of the path.

porque recién comenzamos el camino.

But we want to share what was the key learning,

Pero queremos compartir con ustedes lo que aprendimos,

the key learning that Mario drove to us,

lo que Mario nos enseñó:

and it is to consider what you have as a gift

considerar lo que tenemos como un regalo,

and not only what you miss,

y no considerar lo que no se tiene,

and to consider what you miss just as an opportunity.

perder algo es una oportunidad.

And this is the message that we want to share with you.

Este es el mensaje.

This is why we are here.

Por eso que estamos aquí.

Mario!

¡Mario!

And this is why --

(Applause) —

Y esta es la razón...

(Aplausos)

And this is why

Por eso decidimos

we decided to share the best mirror in the world with him.

compartir el mejor espejo con él.

And we thank you so much, all of you.

Μuchísimas gracias a todos.

FF: Gracias.<br />RD: Gracias. Adiós.

FF: Thank you. RD: Thank you. Bye.

(Aplausos)

(Applause)

FF: Thank you. (Applause)

FF: Gracias. (Aplausos)