Fairfield Teen's Invention Takes Off Worldwide

FAIRFIELD, CT — Ella Casano, 14, knows firsthand what it’s like to suffer the scary discomfort of having to have an I.V. in her arm while in a clinic or hospital.

In her younger days, while contending with early treatment for Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura she had to periodically spend many hours hooked up to an I.V. in order to receive her medication.

Especially for a child, she explained, it’s not only an unsettling experience being plied with a needle and hooked up to a tube, but having to actually see that ominous bag of medication or blood right before your eyes being transfused into your arm can be quite disturbing.

“I just wanted to find a way to conceal that bag of medication (or) blood so it wouldn’t be as intimidating for the patient,” she said.

And so the Medi Teddy was created—football-sized cloth or plastic bears that are safely placed over the medication bag so that the young patient doesn’t have to experience the additional discomfort of a visual reminder.

“When she first mentioned this item, I was like, ‘You may be on to something,’” her mother, Meg Casano—a former floor nurse in a New York City hospital—remembered.

Four years later Ella’s invention—and the Medi Teddy nonprofit she created—has taken off.

“We’ve given away over 4,000 to kids in 23 countries,” Meg said, repeating their credo that children will never have to pay for the device, which is still sold to hospitals to help fund the initiative.

“For every two that we sell, we donate one through our nonprofit,” she said.

Still, funds are always needed to keep the item, which is reusable, in production, and to handle distribution costs.

One thousand of the plastic models have been ordered by a hospital in Israel, with two hospitals in South America also expressing a strong desire for some.

Thanks to a grant from a partnership between Squarespace and the New York Knicks, they have been able to purchase a large quantity of the fluffy bears that go directly to children. Now the family is hoping to find helping getting them into the hands of the children that need them.

“If any readers are connected to a hospital that can give them to kids, we have some to give,” Meg said.

Ella’s perseverance is the stuff of legends. Beginning in fifth grade, she focused not only on creating a prototype of the Medi Teddy, but later devising a business plan and marketing strategy to see it into production.

“She was always persistent with anything she wanted to learn,” Meg said.

Now a sophomore at Ludlowe High School, Ella has her long-term sites set on a career in medicine—in particular hematology-oncology—siting the example of her own doctor, Stephanie Prozora, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine.

“It’s just really inspiring to see how much she does for the patients every day,” Ella said.