Skye Enjakovic just knew there was something wrong with her son’s throat.
Key points:
- Marley Enjakovic was diagnosed with tracheoesophageal fistula after years of ongoing health problems.
- Doctors found a plastic flower lodged in his airway
- Her mother thinks the flower was there for five years
As a toddler, Marley had started choking and throwing up when she ate food.
“We always assumed he was eating too fast because he would do it on his own [resolve] and there would be no other issues,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
“As time went on, that’s when he started wheezing and he was just in and out of the hospital and doctors’ surgeries.”
Adelaide’s boy was diagnosed with asthma and initially Mrs Enjakovic believed her son did have the respiratory condition.
But eventually using a puffer no longer helped with the wheezing or coughing.
In December 2021, Marley had a coughing fit so bad that he was rushed to the hospital.
His oxygen levels were low and a chest X-ray showed that something was wrong with his trachea and esophagus.
A bronchoscopy revealed that Marley had a tracheoesophageal fistula, which is a connection between the esophagus and windpipe.
Space for play or pause, M for mute, left and right arrows for search, up and down arrows for volume. Listening duration: 2min 29sec 2m 29s Marley had the flower pulled from her throat earlier this year.
“It means that the food, drink and sage had basically been going into his windpipe (airway) and into his lungs,” Ms Enjakovic wrote online.
A week later he was flown to Melbourne for surgery as the connection was close to the main artery in his heart.
Just before the surgery, doctors used cameras to take another look at Marley’s airway, and that’s when they discovered an arts and crafts flower in his throat.
Until this point, inflammation had prevented doctors from finding the foreign object in her throat.
Ms Enjakovic believes the plastic flower could have been up to five years old, as that’s when Marley had started showing symptoms.
“I just knew there was something wrong with his throat and I couldn’t figure out what it was,” Enjakovic said.
“I never thought it would be a strange body, but it’s not normal for a child with asthma to choke and vomit on food and drink and literally cough for hours on end.”
The flower was removed in January, but Marley, now 8, will undergo further surgery in Melbourne on Tuesday to remove the connection between her esophagus and trachea.
“They’re going to make an incision in his chest, compress his right lung, and then detach his esophagus from his trachea and then cut the connection caused by the foreign body,” Enjakovic said.
Marley Enjakovic had health problems for years. (Provided by Skye Enjakovic)
“Then [they will] take some chest muscle and put it between the esophagus and windpipe so it doesn’t create another fistula.
“The surgical team in Adelaide did a really good job trying to get his body to heal [the fistula] and he’s done an amazing job, but it’s not healing any more and now we have to go, unfortunately, for another operation.”
In addition to preparing for the upcoming surgery, the family is raising funds for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation.
“We spent a lot of time at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and we honestly had the best care from the surgical team,” Enjakovic said.
“Nothing was left unturned, even his surgeon from Adelaide comes to his operation in Melbourne, that’s how well he’s been looked after and looked after.”