Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Doctor, doctor, give me the news

I work in vision research, so I have no idea of what the doctors and patient went thru for this but it seems miraculous:
Teen lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital

MIAMI – D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart."

As she was being released Wednesday from a Miami hospital, the shy teen seemed in awe of what she's endured. Since July, she's had two heart transplants and survived with artificial heart pumps — but no heart — for four months between the transplants.
[...]
The pumps, ventricular assist devices, are typically used with a heart still in place to help the chambers circulate blood. With D'Zhana's heart removed, doctors at Holtz Children's Hospital crafted substitute heart chambers using a fabric and connected these to the two pumps.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

No comments: