The mother of a little girl with a rare tongue malformation says it took calling in the media to get her daughter the surgery she needed.
On Wednesday, Danielle Vowles sent an email to several media outlets in the city to plead for help, saying her daughter’s life-saving surgery had been put off twice because of staff shortages at the Stollery Children’s Hospital.
Vowles’ two-year-old daughter Alexis has macroglossia, a rare condition caused by the abnormal growth of lymphatic vessels.
The mother of four says she knew something was wrong with Alexis’ tongue the day she was born.
Immediately, Vowles says she noticed her daughter’s tongue would stick out of her mouth. However, the family’s pediatrician said it was only a birth mark.
It wasn’t until a year and several other doctors later that Vowles was given her daughter’s real diagnosis. At the time, doctors decided to wait until Alexis was three before doing surgery to correct the problem.
“But then in July it progressively got worse,” says Vowles. “It started bleeding, it started turning black and hard.”
The toddler’s tongue became so large she was having trouble sleeping, eating and breathing, her mother says.
Delayed surgeries
Alexis was first due in surgery about three weeks ago. That was cancelled and rescheduled for Wednesday – then cancelled again.
About one hour after CBC News contacted Alberta Health Services about Alexis on Thursday, her surgery was given the go-ahead.
“It’s been a really, really busy summer and they have been really full – not just in terms of filling up with the children – but we’ve also had certain times when we have just not had enough staff,” said Dr. Verna Yiu, a chief medical officer with AHS.
“For example, yesterday we actually had to close beds because we didn’t have enough staff.”
AHS has apologized to Vowles for the delay on what they are calling an elective surgery, but denies that media interest sped up the process.
And while Vowles says she’s relieved the surgery finally went ahead, she still wonders why her daughter was not given priority sooner.
“Why book my daughter in on these days?” she asks. “This is the Stollery, this is the biggest child hospital here. It’s the best one … Why should it have took all this to go through all this just to get my daughter in?”
“I’m excited, I’m happy, but it’s very emotional.”
Vowles says Alexis is now recovering in hospital. She hopes to bring her home in about three days.
