CHARLOTTE — You could call Bella Mallozzi’s journey back to Levine Children’s Hospital a full circle moment.
“I have an incurable condition called hydrocephalus,” Mallozzi said. “Typically, people’s brains produce cerebral spinal fluid that gets absorbed in their skull base, and I have a brain that does not absorb it appropriately.”
Management of the condition has required over 40 surgeries. Many of them, Malozzi told Channel 9’s Elsa Gillis, happened at Levine.
“I spent a decent amount of my childhood here,” she said.
She was actually the very first patient to go on air in Seacrest Studios at the hospital — the in-house multimedia broadcast center that opened in 2013.
“That was a really cool experience,” she said.
While she’s still monitored for the condition, she’s no longer a patient there. Now, she’s an employee — a psychometrist with the developmental behavioral pediatrics team.
She helps assess children with neurodevelopmental conditions, and even shadowed her own neurosurgeon in high school.
“I think it’s really wonderful to give back in a space where everybody has really lifted me up,” Mallozzi said.
She says the diagnosis can be a scary reality for patients and families, but she hopes she can serve as an example that “there is a really strong opportunity to cope and thrive with hydrocephalus.”
Mallozzi says her work has been really fulfilling. As she looks towards her future, planning to apply to PhD programs in the next year, she’s thinking about the support she says she got from her family and her team at Levine when she was growing up.
“Now, I can step back into it as somebody that hopefully offers a little bit of comfort and knowledge to other people that are navigating similar situations,” she said.
VIDEO: Oncology nurse’s cancer battle fuels her passion for healthcare
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
