Surgery adds flavor to life of Nicaraguan boy

Courtesy / St. John Medical Center

Yahoska Jimenez Martinez kisses the cheek of her son Ricardo Hernandez Jimenez, 5, after he enjoyed his first drink of apple juice last week at St. John Medical Center. Two local pediatric surgeons fashioned an esophagus for Ricardo from his colon on April 23.

By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
5/8/2007
Last Modified: 5/8/2007  4:02 AM

His first taste of food is made possible by Tulsa surgeons who fashioned an esophagus for him.

Ricardo Hernandez Jimenez took his first sip of apple juice last week. It was the 5-year-old's first drink of anything, ever.

When he tasted the juice, he turned to his mother, Yahoska Jimenez Martinez, and said in Spanish, "Mmm, Mommy, this is good."

It reduced his mother to tears.

"I feel like a new mother," Jimenez Martinez said with the help of a translator, Blanca Thames. "To me, this was like it was never going to happen. But thanks to God, this is reality."

After never having the taste of food, the Nicaraguan boy has taken to eating with a vengeance, she said.

"Now, everything he sees, he wants to eat it," Jimenez Martinez said. "And now, every time he eats, it terrifies me."

Dr. Richard Ranne, one of two local pediatric surgeons who fashioned an esophagus for Ricardo from the boy's colon on April 23, said the boy "swallows everything we offer him."

Ricardo was born in Nicaragua without an esophagus. For the last five years, saliva drained from a hole in his neck, and he was fed through a tube in his stomach.

In his short life, Ricardo had had eight surgeries to fix the problem in Nicaragua, where the government provides medical services. But none was successful because Nicaragua lags behind the U.S. in medical treatment.

The boy, whose family is poor, barely had a prayer of getting the much-needed expensive surgery.

Dr. Warren Pagel, a St. John anesthesiologist who does charitable work in Nicaragua, heard about Ricardo and arranged for him to get the surgery and medical care in Tulsa at no charge to his family.

Since tasting the apple juice April 30, Ricardo has eaten applesauce and graduated to baby food and other soft foods.

"Everything that he eats, he likes," Jimenez Martinez said. "The only thing he doesn't like is eggs."

Ranne said Ricardo could be discharged from St. John Medical Center as soon as the middle of this week.

"He's doing great," he said.

Pagel has arranged for Ricardo and his mother to move in with a local Spanish-speaking woman so doctors can continue to monitor the boy's progress over the next four to six weeks.

Ricardo and his mother will be treated to various activities during their stay here.

The Tulsa Drillers will host "Ricardo Day" on June 3, when the boy will throw out the first pitch at the team's 2:05 p.m. game against the Frisco RoughRiders. Ricardo also will get to meet the players.

"I am very grateful to each one of the persons who made this possible," Jimenez Martinez said