KOCHI: When it comes to family, no sacrifice is too great. Family matriarch Radhamani (in her sixties), a resident of Mavelikkara, too, had no qualms about donating a part of her liver when it was needed to save her five-year-old grandchild’s life.
When Dheeraj, her grandson, was diagnosed at birth with biliary atresia, a disease which causes bile juice to accumulate in the liver causing permanent liver damage, the family was shattered. However, thanks to specialists at the Rajagiri Hospital, the child is now well on the way to recovery, and was discharged on Wednesday.
Surgeons at a hospital in Alappuzha performed surgery to drain the bile into the intestines. However, according to experts, even with this surgery, two-third of patients could end up with liver failure. When he was brought to Rajagiri, Dheeraj had contracted jaundice and his body had swollen up.
The only option was to go for a liver transplantation at the earliest. The surgery was conducted by a team led by Dr Ramachandran Narayana Menon, Senior Consultant & HOD, GI, HPB & Multi Organ Transplant Surgery, at the hospital. The whole surgery took around 10 hours. Twelve days after the surgery, Dheeraj was discharged.