Solved!
I knew I was over looking something simple.
Thank you!
In case anyone else is wondering about loops in emails, I also had to add a global for the while loop to work with.
<?php
global $row_rsOrders;
global $row_rsOrderItems;
global $rsOrderItems;
?>
<?php do { ?>
info to loop
<?php } while($row_rsOrderItems = mysql_fetch_assoc($rsOrderItems)); ?>