Georgia BiggWither
TrachKid Profile
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Georgia Alice Sequoia Bigg-Wither
Canberra, Australia. (b.11 October 1993)
Georgia is six years old and has been tracheostomised for three years. Prior to this she had many problems and spent a lot of time in hospital. She has been unable to swallow since birth and has a gastrostomy tube. She was born with an Interatenoid web in her trachea but this fixed itself after a few months, during which time she was intubated in neonatal ICU. She was later found to have an artery wrapped tightly around her trachea (a 'vascular ring'), which was fixed by surgery but left a kink in it. She also suffers from tracheomylasia ('floppy trachea).
From birth to age three Georgia had many episodes involving problems with her airway. Then, after an operation to re-do her nissen fundoplication in 1996, they were unable to extubate her and had to give her a tracheostomy. The latest theory is that a nerve was severed during a previous op and so one of her vocal cords became paralysed. The other vocal cord is over-compensating for it, so she can talk and we have recently seen her breathe well with the trach tube blocked (at home). We have not had much success with doctors over this issue and we are taking a 'wait and see' approach to the possible outcomes.
Georgia also has some developmental delay, which is mainly physical but also mental. She constantly amazes us with her reading ability, her non-stop chatting, and her happy disposition. After all we have been through, we would not change a thing about her for the world - we even don't mind the trachy any more as it is preferable to being intubated when she has to go to ICU!
Update October 2005: We are quite free of the trach now but I don't think I could have survived the early years without the help I received through your site and through other parents in America.
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- 3 years 43 weeks
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- Australia
