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When this Dubai kid died... to live
Aadhi heart and brain activity had to be stopped during a rare surgery to remove a mass literally eating away into his heart.
A heathy Aadhi and (right), Aadhi after his surgery waiting to get back to his old self.
"If anyone calls you in between, say your parents are waiting and you have to go back."
The power of these words whispered into the ears of two-year-old Aadhi Thoppil Fabeer while he was being wheeled into a complex surgery doctors said he was highly unlikely to survive, brought the child back to life, believes his father.
Surprising doctors with his fighter spirit, Aadhi has become the boy who died to live; his heart and brain activity had to be stopped during a rare surgery to remove a mass literally eating away into his heart.
Last month, Aadhi had the rarest of the rare tumours removed from his heart. The rare procedure, said to be the fifth such successful surgery in the world, saw Aadhi rendered clinically dead for 40 minutes to remove a 200gm cancerous mass growing on the inside and outside of his tiny heart.
By the time he was taken to hospital, doctors say that 95 per cent of the blood circulation to his heart was blocked. Aadhi had been brought into hospital 'just in time.'
Aadhi is the fifth patient in the world to survive such a surgery where doctors use a deep hypothermic circulatory arrest to reduce the body temperature to 15 degrees C.? ?
The normal human body temperature is 37 degrees C and humans die if the core body temperature drops below 22 degrees C.
IN HAPPIER TIMES ... Fabeer with his wife Jeny and baby Aadhi.
Aadhi's Sharjah-based father Fabeer Thoppil Subair tells Khaleej Times how the miracles that were to happen in the coming days unfolded.
"He obeyed ... and we are so, so proud of him"
In June, Fabeer, his three brothers and their families - who he shares his house with - contracted a viral infection that left the entire family with flu and fever.
While all the other house members recovered over time, Aadhi's fever did not subside and he developed a persistent cough that turned more like a wheezing sound.
On July 4, Aadhi threw up. The fever still had not subsided, despite him having undergone two courses of antibiotics. The worried parents rushed him to a nearby clinic where a doctor advised the parents to take the child to Dubai Hospital as soon as possible.
"It was on this day that we realised the seriousness of Aadhi's condition," recalled Fabeer, a financial consultant.
The child was subjected to a battery of tests at the emergency ward of Dubai Hospital and a huge mass was found to be growing inside his heart.
"Doctors gave us two options ... we could either get Aadhi treated at the hospital here or we could take him to India, but at our own risk."
The family chose to travel, but since it was a few days before Eid Al Fitr, all flights were booked. "Miraculously, there were three last minute cancellations and we reached Kochi, Kerala, in India, the same evening," said Fabeer.
Further tests showed that Aadhi had an intracardiac yolk sac germ cell tumour in the heart, an extremely rare condition. Doctors told the parents that it was likely that the tumour had developed during the child's intrauterine life.
The yolk sac tissue develops on the third day of pregnancy but usually dissolves within a month. In Aadhi's case, the tissue had developed into a cancerous tumour.
Dr Naveen Vishwanathan, paediatric surgeon from Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Kochi, later said that this kind of tumour is commonly seen in reproductive organs but is extremely rare in the heart.
Dr M K Mossa Kunhi, head of department, cardiac surgery and heart transplantation at VPS Lakeshore in Kochi led a 30-member team to operate on the boy on Eid day. "Doctors said the tumour was malignant and it was likely that Aadhi would not survive."
The wait was the longest nail-biting nine hours but finally doctors had good news for the parents.
During the surgery, doctors found that the tumour had dug even deeper than anticipated and despite their efforts, one per cent still remains lodged in his heart.
Currently, Jeny, (Aadhi's mother) and Aadhi are both in India where Aadhi is undergoing chemotherapy which he will complete in the next six months.
"He has blisters in his mouth, has lost all his hair and 30 per cent of his weight but he is still going strong," said Fabeer. Our son is a born fighter.
Though managing finances is becoming difficult after Jeny quit her job to be with Aadhi, the couple is trying their best to make things work.
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