Good Friday Appeal 2018: Royal Children’s Hospital gives Isla a future of fun
ISLA Cremin was born with a narrowing of her airway. Now, thanks to the Royal Children’s Hospital, the four-year-old can smell, taste and breathe in freedom for the first time.
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ISLA Cremin can smell, taste and breathe in freedom for the first time in her life.
The four-year-old’s tracheostomy, which has helped her breathe since she was four months old, has been removed in a radical surgery which has seen her airway reconstructed using rib cartilage.
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The hole in her windpipe has been a lifesaver, but it curtailed her independence.
Isla has never been able to splash her baby brother Angus in the bath, or get her head wet at the beach. The suction kit that accompanied her everywhere meant sleepovers were just too difficult.
It wasn’t until Isla caught her first cold as a baby that her narrowed airway, just below her vocal cords, was revealed. She was placed in a coma for two weeks after the inflammation closed her trachea.
A tracheostomy was performed to keep her breathing on her own.
The hope was that as Isla grew her airway would also grow big enough to allow her to safely breathe on her own.
But this wasn’t to be. The longer the reconstruction operation was put off, the harder it would be for a little girl ready to forge a more independent life, away from the risks of infection and airway obstruction in her sleep.
Despite all the freedom this surgery would bring, it wasn’t easy convincing the Garfield girl to have her trache removed.
Isla had been reminded her whole life by parents Brendan and Laura that she needed to take special care of the opening as it allowed her to breathe.
“We just kept thinking about the opportunities and fun stuff she might miss in her childhood,” Mr Cremin said.
“I’d think about surfing together with her. We wanted her to just enjoy a carefree life as a kid running around in the playground.”
Just over two weeks ago, Royal Children’s Hospital ear, nose and throat surgeon Sarah Morrison took cartilage from two of Isla’s ribs, whittling them down to create the scaffold of an airway that will grow with her.
In her new raspy voice, Isla now tells her mum: “We’re the same now.”
When they return home later this month they plan to have a cake with 10 candles — for all the birthdays she had had — that Isla can blow out for the first time.
Her parents can now plan for her to attend school on her own, and a pulse alarm is no longer needed as she sleeps.
“Bringing in a healthy child for surgery was pretty tough, but she’s got the world at her feet now,” Mrs Cremin said.
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