In the early morning hours of Christmas Eve we experienced a major medical emergency with our sweet beautiful daughter Isabella Grace Falkenau. She had an earache, a sore throat, and some flulike symptoms which the Medical staff believes triggered Diabetes type 1-like symptoms in her which sent her into DKA which is a coma like state for two days. She had to be transported to Scripps Encinitas, but her body temp dropped to 90, her blood pressure dropped critically low, and she became unresponsive. From there she was transported to Rady Childrens Hospital. She remained in her coma state until she came out of it later into the evening on Christmas. 

Another complication was Cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) this is the most frequent serious complication of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in children. They still have some more advanced testing to do because they are still trying to figure out if it’s diabetes Mellitus, diabetes insipidus or both which would be rare. Her liver, and kidneys had some some damage due to dehydration and the amount of sodium they had to administer to reduce the swelling on her brain, but they are improving by the day. They were also concerned about her pituitary gland, so in addition to more testing she’s going to need an MRI as well. 

Due to an overwhelming response from thousands of prayer warriors, she went from literally fighting for her life in a two day coma to finally being released from the hospital the evening of day 7. Dave is self employed, and even though we do have a Samaritan Ministries share plan for medical coverage, it doesn’t cover most of this ICU stay, which has reached an astronomical amount and was a tremendous amount out of pocket.  The medical bill after this 7 day stay is beyond anything we could have imagined. We are asking our community for help with this immense expense so we can reverse this diagnosis, get her healed, help find a cure for her and the millions of diabetics out there that suffer from this every day and get her back to living a normal life.  It’s a hard pill to swallow when your daughter who has always been high on life, loving to everyone she meets, and the most selfless person I know say’s, “Dad, why did this happen to me? 

We’ve been educating ourselves on this disease, and we will beat this.  Our goal is to get Bella 100% healed, cured, and back in the water on our boat, spearfishing, surfing again, going to Catalina again, horseback riding, swimming, playing volleyball, hiking, playing her guitar, going on mission trips with us and living a normal life with our family. With your prayers, positive attitudes, knowledge about the disease, and your support, you can help us to get her healed/cured!

Bella is the most precious, sweetest girl—just ask anyone who knows her. Anyone that knows her will testify to this, she has the kindest heart. She has always been a straight “A” student and wants to be a neonatal pediatrician.  She ❤️ loves babies and little ones so much—and always wants to hold and help them. Despite what she was going through in the hospital, all she could focus on when she came out of her DKA coma we’re the cries of the other babies and children in the hospital around her.  She kept wanting to get up out of her hospital bed to go help them.  She loves her 4 siblings (Gavin, Eden, Gray, and Isla) and has been asking to see and hold her baby sister constantly every day since she woke up. 

It’s a true miracle that we finally brought this girl home! We were able to get Bella home for New Years! We woke up straight away and drove to church on Sunday morning—New Years Day—to get prayer and healing from the ultimate physician—the one who before the womb already knew Bella, already called her, already appointed her! 

Any prayer and or support is appreciated beyond what you even know—as well as your continued prayers for our beautiful Bella. 

2023 is going to be a Happy New Year—We know 2023 is going to be a great and amazing year!

Thank you all for your overwhelming prayers and support—and for everyone who has put up prayer and donated to Bella’s GiveSendGo campaign, we are grateful beyond words. We will navigate these waters together.