Hello Son.
Yesterday was quite similar to the day before.
You’re doing better, but you’re still having bronchospasms since your hand-foot-and-mouth disease.
You’re also coughing, more than before…
We’re following the doctor’s advice by giving you an Aerolin x3 plus Atrovent mix. It’s effective.
Yesterday, you also had the iLife treatment from physiotherapist Alessandra Dorça. One of her physiotherapy students comes every day to help you and has recently started using it.
You hate it, and I understand why, but apparently it really helps you open your airways.
You’re also starting to eat much better. And that makes us happy.
We can’t wait to be able to remove this tube one day. We’d like to avoid a gastrostomy, so we’re crossing our fingers that you continue on this path.
What’s certain is that eating “solids” seems to suit you better for reflux than milk.
Your mom makes me eat to show you how, and you watch me with your big, round eyes. You’re so funny.
You also like it when your mom holds you and makes you dance to Fagner. Generally, it calms you down and helps you sleep. And for your mom, it brings back good memories with your grandma Maria Simira.
In the evening, the speech therapist spent some quality time with you to help you eat, and she said you were great!
We also found a new person to help us during the day while the previous one recovers from the flu.
This allowed us to get back into a routine, and I was finally able to focus on work.
Speaking of which, yesterday, your mom and I made an important decision.
We decided to show ourselves on social media as a family.
And if I’m writing to you today, it’s because I want you to understand this choice.
When you read these lines later, I want you to know exactly why we’re doing this.
If you’ve read everything I wrote before, you know I opened an Instagram account called HopeForGabriel, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I’ve been using social media for my work for a long time.
Your mom too, but differently.
We’re not afraid to show ourselves.
In fact, when I “met” your mom in Thailand, we once joked that we’d make videos together.
However, I’ve always been categorically against the idea of exposing a child.
For me, it was clear, definite, non-negotiable.
So yes, this decision is difficult. It makes me doubt.
But if we do it, it’s neither for comfort nor for pleasure.
It’s because we want to give ourselves every chance for the future.
And so, we’re not going to do it halfway.
(either all or nothing).
Everything we share will be in English.
It’s the most universal language today, the one that allows us to reach the most people.
It’s also the one that platforms translate best automatically thanks to their artificial intelligence.
Choosing English means ensuring your story can travel everywhere, be understood everywhere, and help everywhere.
It’s about maximizing our chances of opening doors we don’t even know about yet.
When we created the blog “Hope for Gabriel” in early May 2025, it was amidst terrible chaos.
You were between life and death. We didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.
We didn’t even know if there would be a tomorrow.
We needed hope and strength.
And “Hope for Gabriel” perfectly represented that moment.
A difficult moment that broke us, transformed us,
and will remain etched in us until our last day.
What you need to know is that at that moment, something incredible happened.
People from all over the world came to us.
They sent us love, energy.
We displayed their messages on the glass wall of the room where you were fighting to stay alive.
They gathered around you.
A true community of guardian angels, united around a baby they didn’t know.
That strength carried us.
It helped us stand when everything was falling apart.
And it proved one essential thing.
When people come together for a cause, they can move mountains.
In a world where everyone is tearing each other apart, where everyone lives in their own bubble, creating a community is creating a powerful weapon.
A weapon against injustice, against loneliness, against powerlessness.
With your mom, we want to protect that value.
To build something strong, true, and supportive.
A community united around a family that is fighting.
But today, we are no longer just a baby fighting to survive and two parents destroyed by fear.
We are a family.
We still live in the storm, but there is a clearing.
And we move forward together.
Your mom and I have been repeating it to ourselves every day for months.
“The three of us, together, are stronger.”
It’s not just a pretty phrase. It’s the truth.
We hold on because we are together.
Your illness has literally brought us to our knees.
The hospital’s negligence has probably changed your life forever,
even if, paradoxically, this same hospital also saved you with its ECMO.
Life is unfair. Contradictory. Uncontrollable.
We cannot go back.
We must move forward with what we have.
So why launch “Family Roche” on social media?
Because your story is no longer just about an illness.
You are not just treatments, machines, and diagnoses.
You are a baby who laughs, plays, learns, and clings to life like a warrior.
And we want to show that.
To show a family looking for solutions.
Fighting.
Refusing to be crushed.
Because I don’t know what the future holds for us.
But I know the world is digital.
Sharing can open doors.
Showing this illness can attract specialists, ideas, opportunities we haven’t even thought of yet.
Showing our family can create something bigger than us.
Something that can change your life.
And there’s another essential point.
We live in a world full of artificial, polished, manufactured content.
In that world, one thing will remain solid, authentic, impossible to imitate.
Family.
A deep, stable value that can cut through all the noise in the future.
I believe that showing who we are will also give strength to our projects.
And sharing isn’t just about receiving.
It’s also about helping.
We experienced unimaginable suffering when we discovered your illness online.
No real resources.
No guide.
Just fear.
I refuse to let other parents go through that.
To show that some children have normal lives.
And we’re going to prove it with you!
And I need to clarify something.
For now, the blog remains HopeForGabriel.com.
It continues to exist because it retains all its importance.
Only our social media communication will bear the name “Family Roche”.
I also want you to know something important.
Showing ourselves doesn’t mean showing everything.
We will always set limits.
We will protect our privacy.
And the day one of us says “I don’t want to anymore,” we will stop.
With your mom, we dream of a simple and beautiful future.
A normal life by 2026.
And later, a little piece of paradise in nature.
Small rentals for our community, a vegetable garden, peace and quiet.
A place where you run.
Where you breathe without help.
Where you play with our cats that we had to leave with a sitter and with our future dog.
A mountain opposite. Silence. Peace.
I believe our story can touch many people.
Not because it’s sad, but because it’s true.
Because it shows a family getting back on its feet.
Because it shows dreams that deserve to be told to have a chance to exist.
I could be wrong.
And if one day you tell me I was wrong, I will listen to you.
I will ask for your forgiveness.
But today, I remain convinced that we have more to gain than to lose.
I believe in an important concept.
For dreams to come true, you have to voice them.
And you have to accept reinventing yourself to move towards them.
That’s why Hope for Gabriel is becoming Family Roche.
It’s an evolution.
The beginning of a new chapter together.
Family Roche represents us better.
A Franco-Brazilian family that fights.
A family that dreams.
A family that builds.
A family that transforms chaos into something beautiful.
And a family surrounded by guardian angels who still watch over us today.
There you have it, my son.
We’re starting this new adventure.
We don’t know where it will lead us.
We move forward with love and courage.
And with an entire community behind us.
Always remember this phrase.
“Nós 3, juntos somos mais fortes”
In the meantime, we will work to have the best life possible.
I love you
Dad.
