Tyler’s story: 20 surgeries with a smile

Tyler Bois is a boy with goals. His career aspirations run the gamut. Some days, he dreams of playing football with his favorite team—the Dallas Cowboys. Others, he wants to open a pizza shop, perhaps called “Slice of Ty” or “Ty’s Pizza Palace.” For now, the nine year old stays busy with every day kid stuff—playing with his golden retriever puppy, planning for Cub Scout camp, dancing in the school talent show, skiing and wakeboarding. Somehow between all of these activities, Tyler has squeezed in 20 surgeries. Born with spina bifida and a Chiari malformation (a congenital defect in which the back parts of the brain slip into his spinal cord), he approaches each surgery with a trademark smile and can-do attitude. Before his last operation Tyler wowed Boston Children’s Hospital staff with an impromptu dance from his hospital bed. His first surgery, which closed the lesion on his back, took place at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (Calif.) when he was just one day old. “His surgeons there performed his first six surgeries and saved his life,” says Tyler’s mother Amy. But Amy and her husband Steve wanted to relocate home to the east coast to be close to family, so they moved to Vermont when Tyler was 1 and transferred his care to Boston Children’s Spina Bifida Center. “Before we moved here, Dr. Scott and Tyler’s new team at Boston Children’s consulted his doctors in California. We felt like they knew him before they even met,” recalls Steve...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Our patients’ stories club foot Dr. Ben Warf Dr. Lawrence Karlin Dr. Michael Scott Dr. Roger Nuss spina bifida Spina Bifida Center tracheostomy Source Type: news