Inés Carrascosa is only 10 weeks old and won’t remember the day the Canadiens came to visit her at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Her parents will never forget it, though, and now have photos they can share with their daughter when she gets older.
The visit almost didn’t happen.
Carlos Carrascosa and Sonia Matte knew the Canadiens were making their annual Christmas visit to the hospital starting at 2 p.m. Thursday, but Inés was also scheduled for an MRI around that time. Hospital staff came to get her at 1:40 p.m., so Matte wrote this note and stuck it on the door of her daughter’s hospital room: “Inés really wants to meet you but she went to get an MRI. Please come back? Thank you so much.”
The Canadiens players arrived while Inés was gone for her MRI, so Paul Byron wrote this message under the mother’s note and signed it along with teammate Nick Cousins: “Hi Inés. Sorry we missed you. Wishing you all the best and a happy holiday season!”
The group of Canadiens had already moved far down the hallway when Inés and her family returned from the MRI, but the players backtracked to spend some time with them and pose for photos.
“I figured she’s not going to remember it, but I wanted to take a picture and frame it and put it in their room because at least out of something negative, something kind of cool happened for her,” Matte said.
Inés has a twin brother, Tomas, who is healthy, but the little girl’s first 10 weeks of life haven’t been easy. She was very sleepy, wasn’t growing, was losing weight and didn’t have proper control of her head. Doctors have been running different tests and have told the parents they think it could be Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) , a genetic disorder because of loss of function of specific genes. There is no cure for the disease, which can lead to chronic overeating and obesity later in life, but treatment can improve outcomes, especially if carried out early.
“Now she’s stable,” Inés’s mother said. “She’s on tube feeding because she wasn’t gaining weight at all. She was losing weight every day. And now with the tube feeding she’s gained 180 grams in two days.”
With the twins, Carrascosa and Matte now have five children, including Eladio, 6, Nerea, 5, and Ofelia, 4. Thursday was the 12th straight night Matte was going to sleep at the hospital with her baby daughter, while Carrascosa was going back to their Lachine home to care for the other four children.
“It’s been really hard to be separated from the other kids,” the mother said, adding that she has been pumping breast milk to go back home with Tomas. “The older three are crying every night. We try to Skype, but it’s hard. The homework has taken a toll and it’s hard to be separated from them. It’s hard to have sick kids, but the staff here is amazing. Some have gone above and beyond.
“I love this hospital,” she added. “It’s like one bus away. They take amazing care of the kids.”
There’s a possibility Inés could be going home Friday, but her parents haven’t been promised anything yet by doctors.
“That would be nice,” Inés’s mother said. “Tomorrow would be Day 13 and the kids really miss us. Christmas is coming. We haven’t gotten to do our Christmas tree yet, but I told the kids worst case if she was to stay here longer we’ll put a Christmas tree in the room.”
Canadiens defenceman Christian Folin held Inés in his arms when the players visited her hospital room, while Brendan Gallagher held her twin brother. Inés and Tomas don’t know who those guys in the Canadiens jerseys are now, but they will when they get older and see the photos.
“It’s nice that they do this,” Inés’s mother said. “It’s hard being here during the holidays. Two nights ago, I was crying. They seemed really, really nice, taking time out of their day to come and visit the sick kids.”
Added Inés’s father: “When you get special visitors, it’s always nice. It changes the air a bit. I’m a hockey fan, so it’s nice to see these guys.”
Byron is in his fifth season with the Canadiens, so this wasn’t his first Christmas visit to the hospital.
“I don’t know if it gets easier, but I think you just kind of know what to expect when you come,” he said. “You know how excited the kids are to see you, the families, how important your visit means to them. So it’s a fun day for us to bring that kind of joy to those people and even the staff. They work so hard for the patients. They work so many hours, it’s just really nice that we can come here and change someone’s day like this.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
