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TrachKid Profile

Joshua was born 20 October 2008 via C-Section. He was diagnosed with a cleft palate at birth. We then went to see a plastic surgeon regarding the cleft and he said Joshua also has Pierre Robin, that was all very scary for me and Grant as we didnt know what it was and what the implications were.
I noticed his breathing was very laboured and said to the doctors that he seems to be holding his breath and they said as long as he is drinking fine there is no problem, I went from one Dr to another with the same problem for them all to tell me the same thing.
A month after he was sent home I noticed that his breathing got worse and he was really having a hard time breathing. So we rushed him through to hospital and he was admitted for observation. They following morning they came to us and said there was nothing they could do for us and referred us through to RED CROSS CHILDRENS HOSPITAL where they said Joshua needed a Tracheostomy. It was very scary for us as we didnt know what it meant and what it was.
After some crying we agreed to have the procedure, Joshua was sent to ICU for more observation. That night the hospital called us to say he has to have an emergancy procedure done as his breathing has got much worse.
He spent two weeks in hospital for us to learn how to clean and change the trachi, and that was all before Christmas. He is now home and doing really well.
The cleft will propably be fixed at between 8 - 12 months of age. And the Trachi will stay in for two years till the jaw has had some catch up growth. But as you can see from the pics, he is doing very well and his happy!

• Gender: Male
• Demographic Region: Africa
• Siblings: None
• Medical Conditions: Pierre Robin Sequence, Cleft Palate
• Ethnicity: Caucasian

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3 years 5 weeks

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South Africa