Chennai: When Jaysukbhai Thakur was airlifted from Porbandar to Chennai, the 38-year-old stationary shop-owner was breathless and jaundiced with a critical heart condition. That was on December 30 last year. On January 13, his heart stopped abruptly. For nearly 45 minutes, despite efforts of a team of doctors at Fortis Malar Hospital here, the cardiac monitor showed a flat line, indicating that his heart had stopped. The patient was connected to a portable heart-lung machine called extra-corporeal membrane oxygenator, or ECMO. The machine resumed blood supply to other parts of the body. But the patient slipped into a coma, probably because the brain was blood-starved.
On January 22, the patient woke up from coma, and on January 25, he was connected to left ventricular assisted device, or LVAD, and wait-listed for heart transplant.
On January 29, a heart harvested from a brain dead patient in Hyderabad reached Chennai by courier and the transplant was completed. Little more than two-and-a-half months later, Thakur was declared fit for discharge. Doctors said that they pushed medical care to the farthest to hear a heartbeat in Thakur, who suffered from dilated cardiomyopahy (a condition in which the heart’s ability to pump blood decreases). “It was tense and complex situation. We knew it was do or die,” said interventional cardiologist, Dr Ravikumar.
“The (ECMO) machine routinely brings people back to life,” said Dr K R Balakrishnan, cardiac sciences director, Fortis Malar. But this procedure isn’t easy and is usually employed when all other avenues have been exhausted.The patient was in coma for nearly 10 days, possibly because the brain was blood-starved for a long period. “A blood-starved brain is one of the reasons for miserable outcomes of heart disease,” said Dr Balakrishnan. Thakur’s family had all but given up. “They told me that people who go into coma never wake up. I thought I had lost my husband. But in just a few minutes I heard from the staff nurse that he had woken up,” said Manisha Thakur.
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