{"id":8146,"date":"2020-06-29T15:21:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T05:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=8146"},"modified":"2020-06-29T15:21:41","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T05:21:41","slug":"a-brave-boy-and-a-medical-miracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/a-brave-boy-and-a-medical-miracle\/","title":{"rendered":"A brave boy and a medical miracle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words: Clint Stanaway, The Age<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Photos: Luis Ascui, The Age<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A brave boy and a medical miracle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seven-year-old Sam Gellie is bolting around the living room of his Kew home, chasing his little brother Lewis.<\/p>\n

Sam’s joy and happy-go-lucky energy belie his bravery through life-changing Australian-first surgery to tuck his vital organs back inside his small body.<\/p>\n

Parents Amy and Mark still can\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a sense of relief and thankfulness really,\u201d says Mr Gellie. \u201cHe can just get on with life now, not be restricted, not be held back. He can now walk down the street, play with other kids and not be looked at or touched\u201d.<\/p>\n

At her 12-week scan, Amy Gellie was advised to terminate the pregnancy. Sam\u2019s liver, spleen and parts of his bowel, were growing outside his body, a rare condition known as omphalocele.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn’t know and there was not much hope to be honest. That was a really hard thing to face. We had to keep having faith,\u201d Ms Gellie says.<\/p>\n

Upon delivery, paediatric surgeon Michael Nightingale was one of the first experts assigned to Sam\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw Sam, I knew we were in for quite a journey. He had something I\u2019d never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

From ICU, baby Sam gained strength.<\/p>\n

\n

His vital organs still sat outside his body in a thin membrane attached to his abdomen. Infection was a very real risk, so much so, Sam\u2019s bump was dressed weekly until skin formed over it.<\/p>\n

And there was a power of work to come. Surgeons needed to make space to fit Sam\u2019s organs inside his body.<\/p>\n

They decided to insert four tissue expanders that acted like balloons, which were delicately and gradually inflated, to create space for the surgery that would follow.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago at Melbourne’s Royal Children\u2019s Hospital leading plastic surgeon, Professor Chris Coombs, was the man for the job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThis was a problem we hadn\u2019t confronted before and then to go through design and operation and have everything go according to plan, it\u2019s always incredibly gratifying,” Professor Coombs says.<\/p>\n

It was just the sixth time the operation has been successfully been performed anywhere in the world and the first of its kind in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel incredibly proud of him and his attitude because he’s been through so much,\u201d says Ms Gellie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a soldier going into battle… he knew this was going to be so far. But he did it. He didn’t complain. He just had a determined attitude to get through. He probably knew he was at the end too. Every day I see him look happier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Gellie jokes: \u201cHe was telling me the other day he is missing his bump because he used to love resting the iPad on it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt’s just getting accustomed to how he looks, little functional things he’s learning to appreciate, bouncing the basketball without an obstacle in the way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven-year-old Sam Gellie has undergone a national-first surgery at the RCH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":8147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8149,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8146\/revisions\/8149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}