Viral video: Young woman shows how to change her breathing cannula

Alexandra Robinson from the English Rooksdown has posted a video of a common act for her. More than 3.5 million users have already viewed the video on TikTok. The reason: Robinson is very open about her impairment, which she has suffered from since birth. In the two and a half minute video, the young woman shows how she changes a breathing cannula in the artificial opening in her windpipe. Alli has revealed she has been using a breathing cannula since she was five weeks old. Alexandra, who is called Alli by her relatives, suffers from what is known as Pierre Robin Syndrome. “That means,” says Alli, “that my lower jaw didn’t form properly when I was in my mother’s womb. As a result, my upper airway is very small and when I was born my jaw was very far back and I couldn’t breathe properly.” When she was five weeks old, she was taken to the emergency room for shortness of breath and has had a tracheostomy tube ever since “The viral video shows Alli replacing her cannula with a larger one. The sight isn’t for the faint-hearted. Although the video is only two and a half minutes long, she explains that it actually took an hour and 10 minutes to insert the tube to be introduced in full. Most viewers admire Alli’s brave act, with one user commenting, “I could never, ever do it. you are so brave I cried just watching, not to mention I had to.” Another Tiktok user wrote: “You are an absolute legend. Be who you are and shine a light on things that many people don’t know exist.” One person wrote, “I feel like I’ve been holding my breath the whole time. Admiration for you.” In a subsequent video, she explains that she had to enlarge the tube due to something called carbon dioxide toxicity. This means she had more carbon dioxide in her bloodstream, leading to severe headaches.