BENGALURU: Born with a congenital heart defect that went undetected, Arshad suffered from dizziness, breathlessness and tiredness frequently. It was only when he turned three that doctors diagnosed him with Transposition of Great Arteries (TGA), wherein the two main arteries carrying blood from the heart to the lungs and the body are interchanged.
Two heart surgeries were done to prolong the functioning of his weakened heart, between which he also suffered a viral infection in the heart, making his left ventricle weak.“We did not want to risk a heart transplant when he was young, as would have to put him on immunosuppressants, and that would weaken his immunity and make him fall ill. After a first surgery at Chennai, we performed the second one where we decided to increase the load on his right ventricle, which was performing better.
The left one was left to pump blood to the lungs,” Dr Devananda NS, HOD and consultant, Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgeon and Heart Transplant at Manipal Hospitals said, at a press meet on Thursday.Following a few years of good health, his conditioned worsened again, after which doctors realised that they had no option but to perform a heart transplant. By this time, he had completed his engineering degree.
“On September 27 this year, we performed the transplant. It takes four hours to open the chest, and the golden hour for transplantation from a deceased donor is 4 hours,” he added. However, the transplant went by successfully and Arshad is on the track to recovery, finally seeing a cure from his life-long birth defect.
“When I was a kid, I would get tired often while playing cricket. I would find it difficult to climb the staircase, when my class was on the third or fourth floor. In March this year, we applied for a donor and found several which did not match. Finally, we found one in September,” Arshad told TNIE.