And you thought you had a picky eater? Take heart. 19-month-old Alex Tesoriero has never tasted food.
Born 11 weeks premature and weighing just 437 grams, tubes may have kept him alive but they have also left him with a physical aversion to having anything near his mouth or face.
Quite simply, he won’t eat and paradoxically, little Alex is still fed through by tube directly into his stomach.
While his parents and doctors have desperately worked to get food into him for the past year, they’ve made no progress. He doesn’t even want to be kissed by his parents.
"Trying to get Alex to eat is the worst part of my day and everyone ends up in tears," said his mother, 31-year-old Lisa Tesoriero, in the Australian town of North Balgowlah.
"Alex has chronic lung disease and remained on oxygen for the first 12 months of his life, so he has always had tubes stuck to his face. When we try to feed him he either won't open his mouth or he'll just freak out."
Poor mite has never known hunger, as he is fed by tube every two or four hours. His aversion is a direct by product of spending the first five months of his life in hospital, where his prematurity caused a long list of complications, from being resuscitated three times, to having 10 blood transfusions, a collapsed lung and fractured wrist. He has also had an operation to repair an inguinal hernia.
So the next time your tot turns his nose up at what’s for dinner, spare a thought for little Alex and his parents.
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