May 1989
I sat on a rickety wooden stool in Ward 5, at the bedside of my 26 year old patient.
I was a freshly graduated medical doctor, in an internship.
I was terrified.
This was the first time death was so near, so inevitable, so personal.
Jayaraman (I still remember his name!) was from a remote village, so desperately poor that none of his family could afford to travel with him to hospital.
He suffered from a condition called ‘Primary Pulmonary Hypertension’ (a raised pressure in his lungs, with no known cause), which was untreatable.
He was afraid of dying.
He was frightened to be alone.
So I sat beside him, held his hand, as slowly his life ebbed away.
It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my young life, then. To watch, helplessly, as a patient died, putting to death that glowing belief we cherished as medical students that the knowledge we were acquiring would save lives and vanquish all illness.
It was a day I grew up.
* * *
Today, I experienced the same emotions of that endless night twenty years ago. I lost a child. A patient. A little girl we operated a few months back.
She died because her heart surgery came too late to prevent complications.
She died because a defect so easily repaired in early childhood was left unattended for too long.
Her operation was a “success” – but by then, changes had happened inside her tiny lungs that couldn’t be reversed. And they claimed the ultimate price – her life.
It hurts today, just as badly as it did twenty years ago.
With one difference.
Today, I know I can do something about it.
I know YOU can do something about it.
I know that together, you and I, can fight congenital heart disease.
Keep it from claiming too many more little lives.
Give young children a fate better than this one.
Offer them a better future.
Yes, we can do it.
We must.
R.I.P. little one.
.
.
Our goal: to sponsor 47 heart operations this year. You can help – in THREE ways:
- Tell a friend (or ten) about this and ask them to spread the word too
. - Join a 47 HEARTS GROUP and help a child live – click here
. - Buy the book, “47 HEARTS – How To Live Your Dream With Passion, Purpose & Persistence” (100% of profits go to charity) –
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