Jasper Yates has a rare condition called achalasia that affects his ability to eat and drink. “The esophagus muscle doesn't move the right way, and so his spasms, and it squeezes,” his mother Marilu Yates explained. “It was so sad to just see him like his heart was just broken not being able to just finish his food.”
The Yates family met with Pediatric General Surgeon Dr. Michael Arnold at Golisano Children’s Hospital. “Our consultation with him was great. He spent over an hour with both Jasper and I, answering every single question that we could come up with. He also like looked at my son and treated him with such respect,” said Marilu.
Dr. Arnold used a surgical robot to preform a minimally invasive procedure called a Heller Myotomy. “I had that reassuring feeling that I was going to be okay,” said Jasper. His mother remembers what it was like during the procedure. “It's really neat actually because when you go in for surgery they are communicating with you the whole entire time.”
Jasper spent one night at Golisano, “I felt like I was at a five-star hotel,” before recovering at home.
Within a few weeks, he could eat again. “I hid some Doritos…and then as soon as I could eat again just chowed them down. It was just it was fun. It was good. It was very satisfying ,” he recalled. Now he’s “Back to normal, back to playing guitar, back to everyday life, back to school too.”
You can learn more by searching for pediatric general surgery on leehealth.org.
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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.
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7 сен 2024
