A 10-YEAR-OLD girl who has spent her entire life feeding through a tube is able to eat following a specialised programme at a hospital in Austria.
Courteney Leahy Geasley from Cobh, Co Cork, suffers from velocardiofacial syndrome. Medical complications are associated with the condition including cardiovascular defects, feeding difficulties, gastro-intestinal problems, immune-system problems, growth issues and kidney differences.
Up to last month Courteney had to be fed through a tube in her stomach.
In late March, Courteney and her mother, Sonya, flew to the Children’s hospital in Graz to enable the youngster to participate in a feeding programme.
The Graz model is a tube weaning programme run by a small team of dedicated experts in a childrens university hospital. For the last 15 years the team has treated 500 infants and children, with a 96 per cent success rate. Courteney’s most pressing problem is that she was unable to swallow saliva. She also needed a monitor at home as she would stop breathing every few minutes.
A total of €20,000 was raised by the people of Cobh to pay for her care in Austria. Her mother said she was amazed at the progress her daughter made in just one month at the hospital.
“I just couldn’t believe when they said they would remove the tube. I was so happy. She only ever had the tube from when she was a young baby and now she is doing great and eating things like mashed potato for the first time. I thought she would have the tube for the rest of her life.”
Sonya hopes to bring Courteney to the US later this year for speech therapy.