«Or you trust and let yourself go completely. Or you give up the possibility of still living tomorrow, next to the people you love. With science there is no middle ground and, frankly, if I had made fear overcome, at this time I would not be able to talk about the miracle of which I was the protagonist.” Speaking is Mr. Giovanni (not his real name), a fifty-six year old from Turin who is the protagonist of a double transplant which, from the university-hospital company Città della Salute in Turin, they say is «the first in the world and, in terms of complexity and results, a true model for the surgery of the future.” Giovanni explains that he has often been tested by fate and, although he does not consider himself particularly lucky, that he lives a life full of second chances. «I’ve known that I’ve always had polyscitic liver and kidneys: it’s a hereditary health problem and one from which my father died – says the man -. Until last summer, however, I lived normally and, apart from periodic checks, drug therapy and total abstinence from alcohol, I never had any problems of any kind.”
When the problems started
Last May Giovanni – a worker with a past in the Navy – fell, broke his knee, was admitted to the Martini hospital in Turin, operated on and sent home. And from there everything changes. «At that moment problems started – he explains -. Cognitive first of all: I felt strange, absent, disoriented; and it is only thanks to the love and embrace of my daughter, who one night helped me in the dining room and, patiently, helped me understand that there was something really too strange in my behavior, that I was convinced to go back to hospital.” Where the man receives unexpected and terrible news. His liver and kidneys risk necrosis: he has only a few days to live. «From the martini I was transferred to the Molinette in Turin and here they really tried everything to avoid my death, even when they discovered that, in addition to having a liver weighing 15 kilos due to the numerous cysts, an intestinal colony of bacteria resistant to any antibiotic therapy available on the market makes any transplant attempt futile.”
A solution never explored before
It is at that point, then, that the Città della Salute health workers contact their colleagues from the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS in Rome (among the leading experts in fecal microbiota) and, with them, decide to follow a path that was up until a few months earlier never explored and therefore certainly risky, but the only one possible to try to save Giovanni’s life. «They completely empty my stomach and, when they are sure that I am completely free, they make me start a therapy of 50 capsules of intestinal microbiota to be taken orally and prepared by the Microbiology of the Gemelli Polyclinic Foundation, the so-called fecal transplant» recalls the man. «The 50 tablets of treated fecal material to be taken in order to have the liver transplant were not one
walk, but they made sure it didn’t weigh on me and I am
survived.” «I can already get up on my own, despite my knee, so I will have to do the operation again, because it didn’t go well anyway, the prosthesis came off. Since the transplant I came home before Christmas and every day I feel the difference for the better. They look after me very well with the day hospital, they are an excellence, not only because they saved my life.”
On the list for transplants
Once this cycle of treatment is finished, the reduction of the bacterial load allows the doctors to include Giovanni on the liver transplant list. Twelve days later (it is the end of November), thanks to the generosity of an Italian family who donated the liver of their dear deceased relative, the man receives a compatible liver and enters the operating room. The liver transplant (with very high technical complexity) was performed by the Director of the Liver Transplant Center of Turin, Professor Renato Romagnoli, together with his medical, surgical and nursing staff, in extracorporeal circulation with the collaboration of Cardiac Surgery (directed by Professor Mauro Rinaldi ) and the anesthetists of Anesthesia and Resuscitation 2 (directed by Dr. Roberto Balagna).
«Without blood donors I would have died»
During the transplant, 18 units of red blood cells and the same number of fresh plasma were needed from the Blood Bank and Immunohematology of the City of Health in Turin (directed by Dr. Marco Lorenzi). «Please let me tell you one more thing – explains Giovanni – without the kindness of blood donors, I would have died». In fact, blood donation is essential for transplantation. To enable the over 4 thousand liver transplants carried out in Turin last year, for example, a pool of over 150 thousand donors was needed who, silently and with great generosity, donated their blood. The post-operative course of Giovanni’s liver transplant had no major complications and 20 days after the operation, the patient returned home. «I’m fine and I’m happy, just think that before the transplant I was forced into dialysis and now, however, my kidneys have started working again – concludes the man – of course, I will have to have a second knee operation before I can say I’m fit again and enlisted, but I am confident and as I said from the beginning: I don’t like half measures and until proven otherwise: I trust science.” Giovanni’s case has already received initial recognition in the international scientific literature, and was published in the prestigious Transplant Infectious Disease.
2024-02-17 14:53:07
#trust #give #possibility #living #tomorrow
