When Jesa Balisbisana took unaided breaths Friday afternoon at Children's Hospital Medical Center, she became a miracle baby.

        “It is probably the first time that a child that young with that problem has survived,” said surgeon Mike Rutter. “She's going to be OK.”

Baby Jesa Balisbisana is visited at Children's Hospital Friday by her parents, Sandra Bumanglag and Jeric Balisbisana. The family came here from Hawaii for her treatment. (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

        Jesa was in the 24th week of gestation and weighed 1 pound when she was born Aug. 3 in Honolulu's Kapiolani Hospital.

        She was slowly suffocating because the airway leading to her lungs was too small.

        Dr. Rutter said fewer than 20 children are born in this country each year with that problem —complete tracheal rings — and Jesa was getting 1/16th of the air that even a preemie's unrestricted trachea would supply.

        The smallest breathing tube didn't suffice when physicians in Honolulu tried to ease her condition. “It went in but it went "clunk' when it hit the restriction,” Dr. Rutter said.

        Even so, Jesa, born 16 weeks premature, survived with that awkward, insufficient aid.

        If doctors could keep Jesa alive long enough to weigh 3 pounds, Dr. Rutter told them on the Internet, “Send her to us and we'll repair her.”

        It turned out she couldn't wait.

        Jesa's physicians medically paralyzed her to stop her from dislodging the breathing tube and flew her to Children's.

        Meanwhile, Dr. Rutter said, he found no reports of such a tiny child having the slide tracheoplasty that he was suggesting.

        It still was touchy after she arrived, Dr. Rutter said. “The four days before we did her, she was a very frightening baby.”

        Sucking mucus from her lungs was vital but also risked bruising her tiny airway and causing lethal swelling.

        The planned four-hour surgery on a heart bypass machine was high risk on any child so small.

        “We had no choice,” Dr. Rutter said. “She was going to die.”

        On Oct. 8, Dr. Peter Manning opened Jesa's chest. Dr. Rutter cut away the restricted airway and spliced the two large ends together.

        Leaving the operating room, Dr. Rutter gave Jesa a 75 percent chance of survival.

        Today, her trachea is shorter but wider than normal and it will grow with her, Dr. Rutter said. “This gives her every potential for living a normal life.”

        Alternately anxious and relieved, Jesa's parents visited her daily for the past five weeks.

        Jeric Balisbisana, 33, and Sandra Bumanglag, 32, of Honolulu recalled their reactions when Jesa's physicians first explained her problem.

        “I was scared, I didn't know what to expect,” said her father, a food transporter.

        The more they heard, the worse it became, her mother said, but they were not prepared for her to die.

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