Inhale, exhale … This innocuous little gesture that we do thousands of times a day is essential to our survival. Yet one patient survived for six days … without lungs. A world first. When Mélissa Benoît, a 33-year-old mother, arrived at Toronto hospital in April 2016, she was struggling to breathe: she had a severe lung infection. No treatment worked and his condition deteriorated, the infection even spreading to the whole body. His only hope of survival then is a lung transplant to relieve his lungs filled with blood and mucus. Problem: his state of health does not allow such a heavy intervention. Yet his days are numbered, so what to do?
Try everything for everything
Sometimes you have to innovate in medicine and try what has never been done: remove the patient’s lungs. Her husband, Chris, agrees to this attempt because he knows that this mother of a three-year-old girl has only a few hours to live. No less than nine hours and thirteen people will be necessary for the operation: Mélissa’s lungs, very hard, are difficult to extract from her rib cage.
After the operation, the young mother spends almost a week unconscious. It survives thanks to artificial lungs, heart and kidneys. Then comes the good news for his family: a compatible donor who will give him back his lungs and the ability to breathe. The patient finally wakes up, and learns how far she has come. Since then, she has had to relearn how to use her muscles, which had become paralyzed from lack of use. Sitting down, holding her head, walking are now within the reach of this mother of a family who thanks her family and finds it hard to believe that she has survived after so many adventures.
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