Six hours is what it took for Mathew Achadan to return to life from the brink.
For, in those precious hours, a team of doctors led by Jose Chacko Periappuram, cardio-thoracic surgeon, Jacob Abraham and Bhaskar Ranganathan at Lisie Hospital completed a heart transplantation, which will go down as a glowing chapter in the State’s medical history, giving him a second life.
“So far, so good.” Dr. Periappuram’s words on emerging out of the surgery room were music to Bindu Mathew, Mr. Achadan’s wife.
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The 47-year-old autorickshaw driver from Chalakkudy diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (MCM) had been waiting for a donor ever since doctors said a heart transplantation was the only way to save him.
The surgeons who started the operation at 7.45 p.m. on Thursday after the heart was airlifted to the city from Thiruvananthapuram had an initial deadline of 10.30 p.m.. “Heart retrieved from a donor should start beating inside the recipient’s body within four hours. In this case, the heart was retrieved at 6.30 p.m. However, the doctors managed it in 3 hours and 48 minutes,” said V.R. Rajesh, public relations manager at Lisie Hospital.
But the heart was still to function on its own and continued to be on the support of the heart-lung machine. The second significant feat was achieved around 11.30 p.m. when the machine was completely removed. In the next couple of hours, the patient was kept under close observation even as the medical team cleared the wounds and sewed up the body.
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Whether the surgery has been a complete success would be known by Monday after the critical 48 hours post-surgery when it would become clear how the body is reacting to the new organ inside.