By Michael Farnworth
For the Journal
POCATELLO— 2-year-old Aerabella Beck walked around the therapy room studying the various items they use to rehabilitate children. The therapist pulls out a doll house and a box of dolls and doll furniture for the house, and "Bella" as she is affectionately called by those that know this bright eyed little girl lights up and she quickly walks over and sits down on the floor.
As she picks up each piece and places them into the house, she tells the therapist what each is. She comes to a piece with a button, pushes it as the sound of a baby crying comes out of the toy and she giggles. "Baby cries" she says as she pushes the button again.
It has only been four months since doctors thought this remarkable little girl may not even make it, but what she has achieved in those four months is nothing short of a miracle.
After suffering a traumatic brain injury, and broken right arm, and what doctors originally thought was cortical blindness, Bella is making progress in leaps and bounds, almost literally.
Three months after the incident that left her completely blind, her eyesight began returning, she has started walking again, and she has started talking again.
"I thank God everyday that I have her," Bella's mother Emily Thomas said, "I've never had very good luck, but now I think I understand that all of my luck has gone into Bella getting better and better every day."
It was Bella's right arm that was broken, however she has quit using her left arm, and the first thing that the therapist has said they want to work on is getting her to use that left arm again.
"The biggest thing," the therapist told Thomas, "is that we get her using that arm. She leans on it, and crawls on it, but if she doesn't start using the hand she could forget it completely."
Though her eyesight is returning she still seems to have an issue with depth perception, and has a tendency to trip over small ledges such as the tumbling mat that rests on the floor of the therapy room.
"I'm absolutely amazed by how much progress she's made" Bella's father Darin Beck said, "She's an amazing little girl. My little girl."
During a follow up appointment on Wednesday afternoon, the doctors though impressed with Bella's progress, still have some very large concerns. They are currently worried about her walking, and her eyesight is returning, it is still not fully restored. The doctors also explained that she may never be able to play contact sports.
On the afternoon of Friday the 6th as Bella returned from playing outside her apartment, her Grandmother Teresa Beck smiled and mentioned "Bella just had a bath an hour ago, and now you can't even tell. She's always been that way though, she's like that Charlie Brown Character, just so outgoing." just another indication that maybe things will continue to improve, and that just maybe this little girl will be able to continue surprising everyone.
Some things seem to be returning to normal, and some things have changed completely.
"Bella, and her sister Angelina," Thomas said, "used to have to sleep together with their arms touching. They had almost the same kind of connection you see in twins. Since Bella was in the hospital though, it hasn't been the same. It's almost as if Bella's being in the hospital has made Angelina afraid to sleep that way or even be the same way that she was with her little sister before.
Though Bella is making great progress, there is still a long way to go. She has had a feeding tube inserted into her stomach since January, when the incident occurred, and she still receives her medication through the tube every morning. To begin with she was put on Keppra for seizures, Clonidine for agitation, Zofran for Nausea, Erythromycin to help with digestion, and Zantac to protect her stomach from ulcers caused by the other medications. Over the past two weeks her parents have begun to ween her slowly off of her medications, as per the doctor's orders.
The Incident
January 21 began like any other day according to Thomas. "It was just an average day you know. Spending time with the kids, and Matthew. Bella loved Matt, and he seemed to really like her. Thats what makes this so hard to understand."
Thomas went out at around 8 p.m. to get dinner for the family and everything was fine. "I was only gone for 10 minutes," Thomas stated, "but when I got back everything had changed."
As she walked back into the apartment, she found Matthew Gonzales sitting on the couch holding Aerabella Beck in his arms. Beck was not breathing. Thomas said Gonzales told her that he didn't know what happened, that she had just fallen and that she wasn't breathing.
The two immediately took the 2-year-old to the emergency room at Portneuf Medical Center, where she was quickly taken in.
Beck was unresponsive, and after 4 hours, the hospital life-flighted her to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was in a coma and at a stage 4 on the Glasgow Coma Scale.
The Glasgow Coma Test is a neurological test that ranges from 1 to 15, with 1 being brain dead, and 15 being completely responsive. At a level 4, children are in an unconscious state with no meaningful response and no voluntary activities.
"The doctors told us that every part of her brain was injured," Thomas said. "While we were at Portneuf Medical, Bella suffered a seizure that lasted an hour and a half. It took six doses of Ativan to stop it,"
The police realized three days later when Primary Children's Hospital found Bella's broken right arm and the bleeding was found behind her eyes that this was a possible shaken baby case, and began to question both Thomas and Gonzales the next Thursday.
"I didn't know what had happened," Thomas said, "all I knew was that my baby girl was laying back there (in the emergency room) and I had no idea what was going on." Thomas continued by saying that Gonzales kept telling her to not talk to the cops unless a lawyer was present. "That made me a little suspicious," Thomas said, "but up till then, I hadn't had any reason to think that someone could do this to her."
Doctors at Primary Children's Hospital feared the worst. Bella was unresponsive, had a broken right arm, and they felt it was unlikely that she would recover if she made it at all.
Once she did wake up, it was discovered that Bella was completely blind, and after conducting neurological tests, doctors felt that she had suffered a condition called Cortical Blindness during the incident.
Cortical Blindness is a condition of complete blindness in a normal-appearing eye. This is caused by an injury to the brains optical cortex.
After a week of investigating, police felt that they had enough evidence to arrest 28-year-old Matthew Gonzales on charges of felony injury to a child. These charges should he be found guilty carry with them a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison. A sentence that to many, including Emily Thomas and Darin Beck, Bella's parents, believe would not be nearly enough.
"I would like to see anyone that does something like this to a child spend the rest of their life in prison," Beck said.
Bella showed just how resilient she could be when she began to take a turn for the better. On February 7, she was moved to a long term care facility in Salt Lake City, and by February 10, she began talking again. She was transferred back to Primary Children's Hospital on February 23, and on March 9 she took her first steps again. This was something that doctors did not think would ever be possible again. On March 18, only 3 months after a horrific incident left her life in jeopardy , Aerabella Beck returned home.
At a follow up appointment with the optometrist in Salt Lake City on May 11, Doctors' stated that the hemorrhages in Bella's right eye were gone, but that there were still a small amount in the left eye. Like her arm though, she is not using the left eye as she should be and therefore must wear an eye patch over her right eye for two hours a day to try and get her to utilize her left eye.
"They said that she can see through her right eye just fine, but that she is not using her left eye at all," Beck said. "They want to see if this eye patch thing will work, and if not, they will put her under at the next appointment so that they can really look at it. Then there is a possibility that they may do a surgery to straiten out her left eye which has gone just a little lazy since the incident. They are really hoping that the eye patch will cause the left eye to correct itself."
Matthew Gonzales is currently being held at the Bannock County Jail while he awaits pre-trial on June 20. The Trial is tentatively set for some time in July, and the defense has offered to plead guilty, if prosecutors would allow Gonzales to serve a six-month-rider at the Idaho Correctional Institute, and Probation. This is something that Bella's family has sternly rejected. "We are going to take our chances in court," Thomas and Beck said in unison.
The hardest thing for Darin Beck was that he wasn't there to protect his daughter. This is something that has affected him on a personal level.
"I used to drink, a lot," Beck said, "I was hardly ever sober, and because of that I was not around when I should have been."
Since the incident, Darin Beck has quit drinking, and is proud to say that he has been sober for over 90 days. "It puts everything into perspective and really showed me what was important," Beck said.
Aerabella was not the only child from our area that was injured during the month of January. 2-year-old Brody Passey was severely beaten on January 3. He too was classified as stage 4 on the Glasgow Coma Scale. 24-year-old Dennis Timberlake is currently awaiting trial on charges of felony injury to a child for the January 3 incident, and he too faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
After the ordeals the two children went through, Thomas says that she does not trust people as much as she used to, that there is that underlying trust issue when it comes to people she meets.
"I've met a lot of people though through Facebook, and I am now in a shaken baby support network. Some of the people I've met have become pretty good friends to me and I speak with them on a regular basis. It has been really great to be able to talk to others that know what we are going through."
Community Response
The first of two fundraisers (Brody's Walk), was held on April 13 as over 250 people gathered at the Old Fred Meyer building located at 950 Yellowstone Ave. in Pocatello. The train of supporters made it's way from that location down Yellowstone Avenue to the Bannock County Court House on the corner of fourth and East Center Street, where both men will face judges in their respective cases in the coming months.
The fundraisers are being used not only as a means of helping the families with their medical bills, but also as a way of making people aware of children that cannot defend themselves against abuse.
To put some of the medical bills into perspective Thomas said that Bella's anti-seizure medication (Keppra) has not been approved by the families insurance yet and costs $120 a month. This is on top of the money spent on trips between Pocatello and Salt Lake City, Utah for medical and therapy appointments, and their co-pays.
Both Aerabella and Brody have Justice for- Facebook pages up that can take donations to help the families, and as of May 11, Aerabella's page had 837 friends, while Brody's had 1,128 friends.
Originally the two fundraisers were planned separately, the first was organized for Passey, and the second for Beck. They have since been combined to include both children in both fundraisers.
The second fundraiser "A day for Bella and Brody" is going to be held on June 11 at the OK Ward Park on the east side pavilion located at 1400 W. Quinn Rd. in Pocatello, and events will take place from 1 to 5 p.m..
There will be several events such as a live auction, raffle, jump house for the kids, food, soda, and live bands.
The fundraiser is being organized by Krystal Charlton Orchard, a friend of the two families, and they are in need of donations. So far they have an ipod to raffle off, and they are hoping to gather more items. "What we need most of all," Orchard said, "is people or businesses that would be willing to donate food, and services.
"I think it's just awesome that the community has come out for these two kids like this," Beck said. "You see it on television all the time, people helping other people. You never expect it though when something happens to your family, so this is really overwhelming and unbelievable how much even complete strangers care."
"To have the community come together like this for Bella," Thomas said, "It is just so amazing, it makes me feel so blessed."
Anyone that has a business or services they would like to donate to the cause can contact Orchard by calling (208)705-4744, or you can email her at Krysannchar@yahoo.com
Some of the bands performing will be Category 3, State of Mind, 7ft Below, Second Chance and Anaconda.
"My dad (Larry Beck) has been playing bass guitar for about 40 years now," Darin Beck said. "He used to play with the band Anaconda, and the bands are going to let him stand in on at least a few of the songs they play." Beck also said that they may bring Bella up onto stage for a few of the songs as well."
Brian Miera is a member of Category 3, one of the bands that will be playing at the fundraiser, and in an email Miera expressed his great desire to help the families, and try to bring about some comfort to Bella, and Brody, and to make the community aware of what is going on even in our own community.
Life moves on
Life has a way of locking things away so that a person can move on. There may be scars, but humans are resilient and with the love of a family, that resiliency can shine through.
This is easily the case with Aerabella Beck. This 2-year-old little girl could be the poster child of resiliency, as she kneeled upon the living room floor of the family's apartment only three months after doctors thought she would not make it through the night, playing with her favorite toys. For Bella those are wooden block puzzles. Doctors now say that she does not have cortical blindness, and with her eyesight returning (even if it is only her right eye at this time), Bella confidently reaches down and grabs each puzzle piece by the little red handle. She doesn't fumble around with it as she did immediately after the incident that put her in this situation.
"You know, it never really affected her," Thomas said. "She woke up in the hospital completely blind, and she didn't show any sign of confusion or panic. She just kind of had this attitude of, ok this is the way it is and i'm just gonna go with it."
So Bella sits on the floor picking up the puzzle pieces and banging them happily into each's place while she sings Twinkle, twinkle little star, and her older sister Angelina plays with the family's Nintendo Wii.
As Angelina finishes, Darin Beck asks Bella if she wants to watch something. She excitedly hollers out "Dora," and Darin smiles. "That's her favorite, Dora and The Backyardigans."
Dora the Explorer comes on and Bella drops the puzzle piece she was holding standing up to watch the cartoon. At a point in the show Dora's backpack starts to sing, and Bella points to the backpack looking over her shoulder. "Dora Purple," she says and goes back to watching.
"That's her favorite color," Thomas says as she smiles and watches her daughter affectionately. "I thank God every day that she is still here with us," she continues. "I don't know where I would be right now if it had turned out any different."
Through adversity comes hope, and though something terrible happened to Aerabella Beck, the exact details of which may never fully come to light, whatever that terrible thing was has given new life to this family. It has given them all a new perspective. It has caused a father to realize that there are bigger things in life, and it has brought the family closer together, causing them to be able to work and live a life together. Most of all though, this little girl named Bella has shown a community that though bad things happen all the time, life goes on and one can get through anything with the help of a loving family.
