Born without nasal passages

Photo Ben Pelosse
Chloe, in the arms of his father, Craig Hasilo, is born without a nasal or left eye. To the right, his mother, Joelle Hasilo, and its twin sister Evelyn.

Hugo Duchaine

Thursday, 4 January 2018 18:42

UPDATE
Thursday, 4 January 2018 18:42

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Born prematurely at 34 weeks, Chloe Hasilo had to be operated urgently, because his nose and his throat were not linked and it was, therefore, unable to breathe normally. Three months later, the girl returns home with her parents for Christmas as if nothing had happened.

On the 24th of September last, the world of Craig and Joelle Hasilo has shifted. The small Chloe had to be identical to his twin, Evelyn, born in full health, two minutes earlier.

But once the girl exit from the womb of his mother, the doctors soon noticed that the glasses nasal oxygen did not fit in the nose of Chloe. She had no nose and he was missing his left eye.

“I was so afraid that my baby would not survive. It was terrifying, ” says his father, Craig Hasilo, stroking her daughter in her arms. He watched, helpless, the doctors quickly leave the operating room with Chloe to try to save it.

Her mother Joelle Hasilo, aged 34 years, was she still asleep after the c-section.

“I had to tell him, I didn’t know how to explain it,” recalls Mr. Hasilo.

The doctors have designed a device that they inserted in the mouth of the girl to allow him to breathe, because the first instinct for babies is to breathe through the nose.

Operated in speed

But quickly, they had to operate to open up the nasal passages.

“We were extremely nervous, but also very optimistic,” said the father, 39-year-old.

“And everything was done beyond our best hopes,” says his mother, Joelle Hasilo, relieved.

In just two months, the little Chloe was already gone four times under the knife doctors.

She breathes now normally and all indications are that his right eye is functional.

When the twins are lying one beside the other, they are watching carefully, tells the story of the mother.

Evelyn was able to return home well before Chloe, but every day, she comes to the bed together in the hospital room.

“The best remedy it may have, it is his sister,” says Joelle, who noticed that when they are together, the twins stop crying.

Chloe Hasilo

3 months | Montreal

• Born without nasal passages and without left eye
• Montreal children’s hospital (MUHC)

“Everything was done beyond our best hopes” – Joelle Hasilo

The most difficult operation of his life

The reconstruction of the nasal passages of Chloe Hasilo, then aged less than two months, has been the surgical intervention of the most difficult that has practiced dr. Marc Tewfik.

The surgeon specialized in oto-rhino-laryngology has used a rare technique learned in Australia to allow the little girl to be born without nasal passages to breathe normally.

The situation was urgent, and potentially deadly for the bambine, because even if a temporary solution to allow himself to breathe through the mouth, she was unable to feed herself at the same time.

Before him, doctors at the Montreal children’s Hospital have used the traditional technique on Chloe to make a hole between her nose and throat and insert a tube to keep it open.

First

The opening is however closed because of the great severity of the malformation of the little girl. Dr. Tewfik has proposed another option.

He took the tissues are already present in the nasal cavity to build a wall and keep it open without the tube. Because of the complexity of the case of Chloe, a tube was then added to ensure that the passage remains open.

The surgeon also used a navigation system, an innovative augmented reality for the operation, a first in North America.

Still more accurate than a camera, the augmented reality has given a 3D image of the inside of the nose, necessary to succeed in the delicate surgery.

Chloe being born prematurely, his nasal cavity was already tiny, he said, and made it even smaller because the left eye of the child had not developed.