Molly’s Story

When John Moschilli looks back on the lasting memories he has had with his daughter, Molly, he tends to reflect on sports and the times they played softball in the backyard.

“I got hit in the face by a Wiffle ball many times by her that would leave a mark,” he said. “I smile about it now because as much as it hurt, she could be dead.”

A brutally honest thought for a father and a family that have fought for their lives since day one.

Molly was born at just 27 weeks and five days. John and his wife, Susan, instantly began to fear for their newborn daughter’s life. They didn’t even get to hold her until nine days later.

“It was terrifying,” John said. “Is she going to live? What is her life going to be like? We were totally inexperienced and unprepared as far as having a child with health issues.”

“She was alive, and in some instances, barely alive,” John said.

“She was alive, and in some instances, barely alive.”

John and Susan had friends whose children were crawling and doing other things that healthy babies do, but their lives were completely different. Their only concerns involved Molly’s health, like would she be able to breathe the next morning? They always knew that they could get that call in the middle of the night that the end was near.

It was hard. They had nobody to share their experiences with, but that didn’t affect their fight. They went to the hospital every single day to support Molly. John estimates he missed four or five days in those 11 months. Susan missed 10, but only because she was being treated in the hospital after giving birth.

Their future was uncertain. They heard different things from different doctors, but nobody really knew how Molly would develop.

She was on a ventilator: “We don’t know if she’ll ever get off the ventilator.”

She had a feeding tube: “We don’t know if she’ll ever eat.”

Life was a big question mark already. Then came the trach accident.

Molly had been on an oral ventilator for a long time and it was time to get her off so she could begin to learn how to eat. The NICU doctors recommended that they do a tracheostomy so that the tubes were no longer in her mouth. When the doctor made the incision, all of her connectivity tissue disintegrated. When he went to grab her airway in his hands, it disintegrated right in front of his eyes.

The doctor cancelled the rest of his surgeries that day to work with Molly. It took almost the entire day to stabilize her. An endotracheal tube was inserted into her neck to create an air cuff, which was then blown up in her airway, to allow her to breathe. In the middle of this whole procedure, Molly had a cardiac event that required CPR and the crash cart.

The doctors gave her a five percent chance to live.

She did.

And she’s thriving.

Molly arrived at Franciscan Children’s at eight months old. She was much more stable when she arrived, but she was way behind other children her age.

“She couldn’t roll over. She couldn’t do anything,” John said. “But I remember the day we got there. There were probably 10 people in that room. They put an unbelievable plan together to get this kid on the right path.”

Molly started to hit some milestones that John recalls with a smile over the phone.

“I remember when she could sit up. I can remember when she would roll over. I remember the day they took her off the ventilator and she never went back. She was also addicted to narcotics from all of the different surgeries. Franciscan weened her off of all of that. We saw her go from this total immobile baby to someone who could sit up, reach out and grab my hand, play and do all these things.”

After three months on campus, Molly was finally healthy enough to go home for the first time. She was still on her feeding tube but off of the ventilator. But after getting her home, John and Susan noticed that Molly had stopped responding to sound.

“We brought her home in June and realized she was deaf in October,” John said.

So she received a pair of cochlear implants – one when she was three years old and the other when she was nine.

When she was four, Molly had her airway reconstructed from cartilage they took from her ribs. She was finally able to get off of the trach.

With all of these hurdles behind her, Molly began to live her life.

She was drawn to sports, where she played softball and soccer. She danced. She really excelled at jazz.

“It felt amazing. I couldn’t believe that I actually did it.”

But she loved softball and she was good at it.

John coached her when she was growing up and at age 12, Molly wanted to try out for the travel team.

“The kid went out there, not knowing any of these other 20-plus girls, and kicked butt,” John said. “She was completely fearless which was amazing to me. Anything they asked her to do, she did.”

All of those hours in the backyard pitching to Molly came to fruition in a beautiful moment that nobody would forget on April 18, 2018.

Molly was on quite the hitting streak for Milford High School.

“We all kind of knew it was coming because she was hitting the fence a lot,” John said. “That particular day, I was on the phone with somebody and she hits this bomb that cleared the fence. I immediately hung up and I think I was jumping up and down higher than she was. The grin on her face to this day, I will never forget.”

Her first home run – a culmination of the perseverance, dedication and strength that Molly, John and Susan showed every day.

“It felt amazing,” Molly said. “I couldn’t believe that I actually did it and I was smiling while I was jogging around the bases. I saw my dad smiling at me when I was going to third base and my team was waiting for me at home plate.”

Molly excelled on the softball field, but she also took time out of her schedule to look after others. She joined Best Buddies while at Milford High.

“She didn’t have a lot of friends in high school,” John said. “Everybody knew her and they weren’t mean to her, but they didn’t go out of her way to include her either. Yet she knew enough that other kids needed friends.”

“When she came to us and told us she wanted to be a part of Best Buddies, Susan and I were a little hesitant. She loved it and she was there for these other kids that were worse off than her. She should have been someone that needed a Best Buddy, but she turned it around and was a Best Buddy herself,” he continued.

“Other hospitals saved Molly’s life, but Franciscan Children’s gave Molly her life back to live.”

Those two things certainly make John beam with pride. But ask him about his emotions surrounding Molly’s graduation from Milford High School this past spring and he could barely get the words out.

“I have no words,” John said as his voice cracked. “Unbelievable.”

Molly is now ready for the next chapter in her life. She is attending Westfield State this fall and moved into her dorm room over Labor Day weekend.

“As I enter college, I’m very excited to make a lot of new friends and have a lot of new experiences,” Molly said.

This new chapter is one that was maybe a dream 18 years ago, but is also one that the entire Moschilli family is thankful for.

“Other hospitals saved Molly’s life,” John said. “But Franciscan Children’s gave Molly her life back to live.”