Working till the wee hours of morning in the office, nibbling away at cheese pizza or chicken burger and virtually not exerting oneself is not uncommon. Till last month, 27-year-old Rupesh Mathur, hailing from Bihar, was leading a life just like that, till a sudden chest pain, interrupted what the techie thought was a deserving existence.
Rupesh was diagnosed with severe blockages in four arteries, which had severely damaged his heart. Sheer providence and expertise of medical technology gave this city-based software engineer a new lease of life.
“I felt breathless in office and came back home. While I was taking rest, I felt suffocating. I had terrible chest pain,” Rupesh explained. It was November 15 and he went to Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology.
“I was diagnosed with heart attack and was initially treated with clot dissolving medicines.” Later, his colleagues shifted him to Wockhardt Hospital.
“When he came to us, he was in a bad shape. His lung was clogged and despite being on the ventilator, his body wasn’t being able to get oxygen,” said Dr NS Devananda, cardiac surgeon, Wockhardt Hospital.
Rupesh later underwent a bypass surgery with the assistance of a heart and lung machine to maintain blood circulation. After the surgery, his heart remained extremely weak. He appeared to be the verge of dying and the doctors could not take him off the machine.
“We decided to give it a last try by placing him on an extra carboniam membrane operation (ECMO). His lungs had weakened due to poor circulation of oxygen. Keeping him on an ECMO was a major challenge as his chest had to be open and his blood needed to be thinned, which led to bleeding,” said Dr Devananda.
To let him undergo ECMO with less than 5% chances of survival was a big decision for his family too. After 24 hours, doctors tried to take him off the bypass. However, they were forced to put him back on circulatory support after 45 minutes as his heart could not cope. “We were left with just two options — either keep him on life support system for further 24 hours and hope that his heart strengthens or think of a heart transplant. But getting a donor heart on such short notice was close to impossible,” he added.
On November 22, he was taken off circulatory system for four hours with his chest still open, but his heart was still too weak. The doctors put him back on circulatory support for another 12 hours after which his heart began regaining strength and he was removed from the machine.
While a patient is usually put on the heart lung machine during the time of surgery lasting a few minutes, Rupesh had survived on the machine for 48 hours. Nine days later he was taken off the ventilator. His heart had recovered well and he was discharged from the hospital.
Thinking back, Rupesh says: “I am a totally non-alcoholic person. I don’t even smoke that frequently. But my job had kept me too busy and left me with no time to exercise. I was putting on weight every day. Though I wasn’t obese, I was overweight and my food habits were very bad.”
Comments