73-year-old survives back-to-back surgeries

CHENNAI: As four surgeons gathered around 73-year-old Gowriammal on a hospital bed, the mood is light; one even joked about how she will be able to start running again soon. This was a scene that was in sharp contrast to the same ward, exactly 11 days ago.
Gowriammal had been referred to the Billroth Hospital with a broken hip. "I had gone to the terrace to take dried clothes when I slipped. Who knew it would become such a big problem?" said Gowri. "When I first asked her to undergo a coronary angiogram, it was routine procedure," said Dr A Dorairajan, Arthroscopic surgeon. What he found was shocking for her family. "Despite no history of heart trouble, it appeared that she had suffered a minor heart attack the day after she fell and broke her hip," he added. So, in addition to the hip replacement, cardiologists deemed a Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) necessary for her survival.The surgeons then faced an impasse. If the hip replacement was done first, she ran the risk of having a heart attack on the operating table and if they performed the bypass, she wouldn't be able to walk for "four to six weeks post surgery, delaying recovery, besides running the risk of deep vein thrombosis, pneumonia and septicaemia." After two days, a plan was arrived at after a consultative meet of all the doctors and experts. "We decided that both the surgeries would have to performed at one shot, so that she would stand a good chance for a complete recovery," recalled chief cardiothoraic surgeon Dr S Thiagarajamurthy.