47 years old Zubaida Bano was suffering from kidney failure for more than two years. She was undergoing regular dialysis at a hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir, however, her condition started deteriorating in the last one year due to the need for regular dialysis. Doctors advised her to undergo a kidney transplant to stay alive. Initially, her husband was willing to donate his kidney to save his wife Zubaida, however, on medical examination, he was found to be unfit for kidney donation. There was no other eligible donor in the family, who was having a matching blood group and could donate kidney to save Zubaida.
However, Zubaida and her family realized that she is not going to survive very long on dialysis and requires an urgent kidney transplant. Her daughter Ifra Jan, with the help of her maternal uncle, approached Dr. Neeraj Goyal at Alchemist Hospital, Panchkula. Ifra, just a 20-year-old college student, had determined to save her mother.
On evaluation, she was found to have a blood group that was different from her mother and found to ineligible to donate to her mother. Dr. Neeraj explained, “ A swap (viz a paired exchange) kidney transplant was the best available option for Zubaida according to medical science”.
At the same time, 33-year-old Ajay Kumar of Yamunanagar also visited Alchemist Hospital. Explaining his painful story, Ajay broke into tears, “ I got a heart attack 2 years back when I was just 31 years old and stenting was performed at PGI, Chandigarh as it was a major heart attack. During treatment for the same, I was told that both of my kidneys had failed due to uncontrolled blood pressure”.
Few months after cardiac stenting, Ajay was started on regular dialysis, as he started having breathing difficulty due to excess fluid collection in his chest. For the initial few months, he felt better, but soon he started suffering from side effects of regular dialysis. His body started depleting, had significant weight loss and was almost bed-ridden.
“I had frequent chest pains during dialysis and had repeated attacks of pneumonia due to fluid collection in the chest that required repeated hospitalization. My wife Geeta and I had understood that I can not survive very long on dialysis and require kidney transplant at the earliest,” explained Ajay.
“When Ajay visited us for the first time, he was in very poor health and was not able to walk properly. As the blood group of his wife, Geeta was different from that of Ajay, they had already visited few hospitals, however, they were denied the transplant,” explained Dr. Ramesh Kumar, Consultant Nephrologist.
“On a detailed analysis of both the patients’ files, it was found that these patients were fit or eligible for the paired exchange kidney transplant, which is a legally and medically viable option. Tissue matching was performed and both the kidneys matched perfectly to the respective donors” explained Dr. Neeraj. After this, a joint session was held between both the families and necessary legal permissions were sought from the respective state authorities of Jammu Kashmir, and Haryana. However, in the meantime, Ajay suffered another attack of chest pain, and coronary angiography revealed another blockage in his heart.
Ajay’s wife Geeta said, “Ifra came to our life like an angel as my husband required an urgent kidney transplant at that time”.
Dr. Neeraj Goyal successfully performed this swap kidney transplant, the first of its kind in the northern region of Haryana. According to Dr. Neeraj, both these patients were under the expert care of Dr. Ramesh Kumar, Sr. Consultant Nephrology after surgery.
Dr. Neeraj further explained that “due to Ajay’s underlying heart disease and history of heart attacks his heart was quite week and was not pumping the blood properly. Therefore surgery and anesthesia were quite risky in Ajay. However, under the expert anesthesia care lead by Dr. Akaljot Kaur, Head of the Anesthesia Department, surgery was performed successfully without any complication. Due to his positive approach, and willingness to live again, Ajay recovered very rapidly after the transplant. He was eating normally on the same evening and was out of his bed on the third day of his surgery.” Both these patients are now leading a normal life and trying to come out of the mental trauma they had been through, all this time.
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