JOYFUL PIECE #98

Dominoes and Joy

Why are dominoes and joy linked? Dominoes are so mundane…

Mended hearts, on the other hand, are intimately linked to joy. What am I up to here?

Have you heard about the domino procedure, where a single donated heart provides a cascade of possibilities? A removed heart, even if less than perfect, can provide relief to more than one patient.

In the case described through the link further below, a young patient, Hend, with weak heart muscle but with healthy heart valves became the lynch pin for a domino procedure. A donor gave Hend a new live heart. The live heart removed from Hend became the gift of life for two different infant patients who had undergone multiple operations to stay alive because they needed heart valves. One child received Hend’s pulmonary valve. The other child received her aortic valve. These infants received live valves that saved them. The valves will grow with them, and will prevent multiple future operations to replace valves that do not grow with them.

This is triple joy from the multiplicative effects of a single donated heart— the domino procedure.

But what further caught my attention was the diversity of the patients and their surgical teams. Each surname identifies a different ethnicity, a different origin. Yet only the cooperative confluence of their lives was able to deliver such wonderful, life-giving outcomes.

Joy times three, or even joy to the third power, made possible through collaboration and compassion.

We have much to learn in these times of greed, reduced medical assistance, and bigotry. We can do so much more with our national resources for the benefit of all.

What do you think?

https://columbiasurgery.org/news/nyps-health-matters-one-heart-saves-three-lives-innovative-partial-heart-transplant-performed?utm_source=Healthpoints&utm_campaign=f1a4f027b5-071020_Healthpoints-Roundup_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_060ba0dd01-f1a4f027b5-79124070

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