Born in May 1993, Hannah Clark is a beautiful baby who makes her parents happy. This only lasts for a while, because the infant quickly manifests serious heart and lung disorders. When she was 8 months old, her parents rushed her to Harefield Hospital (west London) only to be told that their little girl had infant cardiomyopathy. His heart muscle can barely pump blood.
The only way to save the little girl is to transplant her with a new heart. But how do you find one small enough for your age? Not all hearts are up for grabs. After an eighteen-month wait, surgeons obtain the heart of a baby who died at 5 months. Professor Magdi Yacoub, a pioneer in lung and heart transplants, installs it in Hannah’s rib cage. Since it takes up little space, Hanna’s is left in place. One will support the other. For four years, Hannah lives with two hearts in her chest, beating in unison. The little girl is doing like a charm. Like all transplant recipients in the world, she must gorge herself daily on anti-rejection drugs. As the months and years pass, his own heart recovers. The pain from which he suffered disappears.
Hannah would have been the prettiest little girl if she hadn’t developed cancer of the lymphatic tissues around the age of 7. This is a risk faced by all transplant recipients whose immune system is weakened by anti-rejection drugs. The Ebstein-Bar virus exploits this weakness to enter the body and trigger cancer there. For five years, Hannah bravely underwent chemotherapy upon chemotherapy in an attempt to eradicate it. But the treatment does little. Worse, the transplanted heart begins to show signs of weakness because the dose of anti-rejection drugs had to be lowered. One day, Hannah’s father is told by a nurse that his daughter has only twelve hours to live.
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