Medical Reports

Dezrie was born in December 2006, premature on 35 weeks. Since she was 6 months old she used to be admitted with pneumonia and by the time she was 3 years old, sh has been admitted to hospital about 10 times.

I first noticed there was something wrong with my chest when I was around ten years old. The dent in my chest just kept getting worse to the point where I was too embarrassed to ever take my shirt off. I could never swim and changing clothes for gym class at school was a nightmare. I was teased all my life for being tall and skinny and having a deformed chest just made things so much worse.

Tinika Davies of Delft has a hereditary deformity of the chest which puts a lot of pressure on her lungs and heart. Dr Marco Zampoli, a paediatric pulmonologist at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, said the condition, Pectus excavatum, caused Tinika to have difficulty with breathing.