The Tribune

By CARA BETHEL

cbrennen@tribunemedia.net

ONE year ago, D’Soragi Hanna was a healthy little four-year-old boy who loved to watch “Diego” on Nick Jr, play with his cousin and who earned top marks and awards in his kindergarten class at St Francis and Joseph Primary School.

Today that same little boy is paralysed and blind after something went horribly wrong when his parents took him to the Princess Margaret Hospital for a routine procedure to help treat his asthma.

“D’Soragi went to the hospital for his asthma and they wanted him to have a laryngoscopy (a procedure where a camera is inserted down the respiratory tract),” D’Soragi’s mother Sheryone Hanna told The Big T in an emotional interview.

“The doctor told me it was just a simple procedure. They didn’t even need to cut him. I told my son that when he woke up in the morning, I would be right there waiting on him and he said, ‘okay, Mommy, see you in the morning.’ I never dreamed that would be the last time my child saw my face. Because when I saw him the next day, it was like I was looking at a completely different child.” Mrs Hanna said that while she was never told exactly what happened that night in hospital, it appears that D’Soragi had complications following the laryngoscopy procedure. Mrs Hanna said that it is believed her son may have suffered a seizure that resulted in him having to have a tracheostomy (a breathing tube inserted into the windpipe). This led to him having to be rushed to the operating room twice to have tubes inserted into his lungs after a nurse noticed that air was seeping through the tube in his windpipe.

D’Soragi was in a coma that lasted several weeks. This was in early January, and the family and their story were featured in The Tribune.

After he woke up from the coma in March, Mrs Hanna said hospital staff gave her the devastating news that her son was blind.

“I started noticing that his eyes weren’t focusing on anything and then they did the tests,” she said.

D’Soragi stayed in PMH until August when he begged his mother to let him go home for good.

“After all of this, he cannot walk, he cannot sit up and he cannot see. How could this happen? My child walked into the hospital and he came home in a wheelchair. I need to know what happened to my child. To this day no one can tell me what went wrong,” she said.

The Hannas recently took their son to Florida so that he could be seen by a neurologist and ophthalmologist.

“They said that without full knowledge of what happened it would be hard to say exactly what happened to the child,” Mrs Hanna said.

However, the doctors in Florida agree that the child had sustained an anoxic brain injury (brain injury from loss of oxygen) that resulted in paralysis, hydrocephalis (fluid on the brain) and cortical visual impairment, she said.

“They did tell me that his muscles are very weak, but they think that if he keeps up with his therapy, he could walk and have movement in time. However, the ophthalmologist said that though D’Soragi’s eyes look healthy, he does not see any recovery for the baby’s sight and “it would be a miracle if he sees again.”

D’Soragi’s parents now face the daunting task of preparing their once carefree child for life as a blind person.

“Every day he asks me, ‘Mommy why can’t I see, when are my eyes going to work again, why I could only hear Diego, Mommy why I can’t walk, why am I in pampers, when can I go back to school.’

It weighs on his mind and it breaks my heart, because if my son were born blind it would be a difference. And when I try to tell him that he will have to go to the school for the blind he shuts down. He says he doesn’t want to go to a blind school, he wants to be like his friends.”

Mrs Hanna said her son’s condition has destroyed her family.

“My son Dylon is taking it hard, my mother is taking it hard, I have not been able to go back to work because my son needs constant care. This has really affected my husband Nathaniel badly. He comes home from work every day and when he sees him, he starts crying, ‘oh my son, what happened to him’.”

Mrs Hanna said that the family is also having to deal with the financial challenges that have arisen from having to care for a special needs child. They said they would be grateful for anyone who wished to donate funds on their behalf.

The Big T contacted Judy Terrell Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Public Hospitals Authority, for comment on what happened to D’Soragi at PMH. She said: “I am advised that this matter is a legal one and therefore we are unable to comment at this time.”