"Two-year-old boy who needed tube to eat will enjoy first bites of Thanksgiving feast after surgery" - Elizabeth Elizalde and Larry Mcshane
This Thanksgiving, the dinner options are plentiful for 2-year-old Ein Sanchez. The New Jersey toddler is celebrating his first Thanksgiving without a tracheostomy tube in his neck, a necessity to keep him alive after his premature birth at 25 weeks — at just one pound, 14 ounces. His first two Thanksgiving meals came through a tube. The breathing tube was implanted at The Mount Sinai Hospital when Ein was just three months old. Doctors, worried his underdeveloped lungs might prove fatal, put the tube through a surgical hole made in his neck. The tube was permanently removed just last week, and just in time for this year's big holiday. Mount Sinai otolaryngology specialist Dr. Aldo Londino, who performed the July surgery, said the hole in Ein's neck will close over time and the prognosis is bright.
"His family is thankful for the ability to communicate with him," said Londino. "He's forming his words, hearing his own voice. I think that's a big win for him."
— Aldo Londino, MD, Assistant Professor, Otolaryngology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai