It is a beautiful story, with a happy ending, starring a 7-year-old boy. It took over a year and a half of waiting for a child but also a lot of care and solidarity. A difficult period lived among other things in the pandemic. A story to tell: for 525 days a child lived with an artificial heart before the transplant, which gave hope to him and his family.
This story is incredible at the Regina Margherita hospital in the City of Health in Turin. Assisted and cared for for these long months, the baby waited patiently. "The little patient is only 7 years old - explains the hospital -, but he has already understood that sometimes life has no hope without these gestures of love, solidarity and generosity: organ donation is just that".
A heart transplant after 525 days, the story of the 7-year-old boy
The little boy had a heart transplant after 525 days of hospitalization connected to an artificial heart. "She is only 7 years old, but she has already been through a lot, perhaps too many for her young age”, Writes the Turin hospital in a note, speaking of what it is a real record with a happy ending for the hospital's pediatric cardiac surgery. The little one in the summer of 2019 had the first symptoms of heart failure. Arrived in Italy with his mother, in Liguria, where his father lives for work, the little one is hospitalized in a health facility and then transferred by helicopter to Regina Margherita.
"Not even the time to enter the cardiac surgery ICU, directed by Dr. Sergio Michele Grassitelli - explains the hospital - that his heart stops. He is resuscitated and subjected to the implantation of an ECMO extra-corporeal circulation". Then the turning point. But due to his serious condition, the medical staff subjected him to a delicate operation. In fact, doctors implanted a Berlin Heart artificial heart. One way to keep him alive and start recovery, before the heart transplant.
The artificial heart and then the transplant
The little one waiting for a heart transplant, however, began to get better, assisted throughout this long period by the health staff of the Turin hospital. "Begin to appreciate the Italian cooking - says the hospital again -, grows up, learns our language. Seight watchful eyes of the father and mother, who in the meantime gives birth to a little brother. All this for 525 long days, all spent in hospital, surrounded by the affection of the medical and nursing staff. A try to overcome the complications that such an unnatural system as an artificial heart can cause to his little body".
And this is considered the longest implantation time among the "little heroes" of Regina Margherita of Turin. "To make the hospital stay more comfortable - he then clarified the hospital -, the little patient spent some periods in the premises of the Margaret Island. Lo space identified in the Regina Margherita for the long-term care of Oncohematology patients (directed by Professor Franca Fagioli, Director of the "Regina Margherita" Department of Pathology and Child Care of the City of Health)".
Months of waiting and then the turning point
Over a year and a half until it was time for a heart transplant. The little one subjected to delicate surgery by the team of pediatric cardiac surgeons, directed by Dr. Carlo Pace Napoleone. "A very fast recovery - still reads in the note of the hospital -. THEor the amazement of waking up without the artificial ventricle lying on the abdomen, connected to a control console that kept him alive but limited him in all the actions that a child should be free to do. A few days of hospitalization between the pediatric cardiologists and the nurses of Dr. Gabriella Agnoletti. Sfollowed with attention by Dr. Enrico Aidala, cardiac surgeon responsible for the Transplant Program, and in recent days the discharge".
