A colorful display outside of Connecticut Children’s in Hartford is brightening the day for patients inside the medical center.
For the last four years, Aliana Fichera has decided to have a birthday bash, where she invites friends and patients to decorate the sidewalk in chalk.
Fichera has been a long-time patient herself and has had to undergo monthly infusions to strengthen her immune system.
As a child she was diagnosed with CVID, Common Variable Immune Deficiency, a rare diagnosis affecting roughly 66,000 people in the United States.
For Fichera, a “common cold” can pose serious health complications.
“When I was in the hospital, when I was younger, when I would kind of just look out the windows, I kind of felt not myself and I kind of thought bad thoughts. And I wanted to make other people happy and not have them feel the way I did. So I just wanted them to look out the window and make them fight even more,” Aliana Fichera said.
Patients who can’t leave the hospital can send down messages to be written on the sidewalk.
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Donations are collected in memory of two patients who recently died. Their individual families can choose which department of the hospital receives that money.
