A congenital heart didn’t hold him down! Chandran, a 14-year-old boy, was gravely troubled by multiple congenital heart defects and could not even squat down. He was being managed at Jipmer since the last five years where he was diagnosed with this condition.
Chandran’s story
The fourteen-year-old Chandran belongs to a very ordinary low class family as his father is an agricultural laborer. The Government school student belongs to Parithipuram in Villupuram district and studies in class VIII.
His face, fingernails and tongue by now had all turned blue. This was a surprise as the hemoglobin count recorded at 18.5 gm. The boy was at last taken to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (GGH) because of his worsening condition and a number of investigations were done on him. The doctors were scared that Chandran might get a stroke or an abscess and felt he needed attention.
Chandran’s pulmonary valve was obstructed and He was suffering from an overriding aorta and a ventricular septal defect. The blood pressure in Chandran’s lungs was very high and there was an enlargement noticed in the right ventricle. Seeing his medical condition the doctors were stunned and felt he needed surgery right away. They were astonished how Chandran had lived for so many years.
According to the doctors who saw his case and did surgery on him stated that he was a complicated case to deal with. K.S. Ganesan, a cardiothoracic surgeon, along with a 10-member team did the open heart surgery on the child on the October 5th.
The surgeon’s viewpoint
Dr. Ganesan explained the whole procedure that they have done for the child, “When we opened up his heart we found the aorta and pulmonary artery emanated from the right ventricle, an unexpected complication. Normally, the aorta that carries oxygenated blood originates in the left ventricle and the pulmonary artery, which carries deoxygenated blood to the lungs, originates in the right ventricle. We created a bidirectional shunt in the superior vena cava that would take blood to the lungs.”
“We also did an atrial spetectomy (made a hole between the two atria to lower pressure on the ventricles) with Azygos (vein) litigation, thus providing an alternative path for blood to flow into the right atrium,” he stated.
Explaining that this was a way to reduce the pressure on the right ventricle, Ganesan stated that “We did not consider relocating the aorta into the left ventricle as it is a complicated procedure and the patient could die.”
The Chief Minister’s comprehensive health insurance scheme has lent a great hand to the child as nearly 4 lakhs would have to be shelled out by Chandran’s parents if it was to be done at a private hospital affirmed the Hospital Dean, V. Kanagasabai. The boy needed special in – house attention for almost a month.
