Amalia Hussa
May 7th, 2017
King Faisal Medical Centre
Amalia checked the time on the stat monitor, 5:03 a.m. She was standing with Naseem by the stainless-steel table just outside the operating field. Amalia picked up the sterile bowl and walked back to the surgical site, by Faryal's right side. Her urine and waste bags were full yellow and dark-brown. Amalia placed the donor heart inside Faryal's chest cavity, amongst the knotted ends of her severed blood vessels. And she looked at her, Amalia had never stopped thinking of her as her friend.
Her friend now needed six points of suturing and then the donor heart would entirely take the place of her old heart. It would beat for her. The process now was to work backwards and suture the previous points of transection: left atrium, superior vena cava, inferior vena cava, right pulmonary artery, and finally the left pulmonary artery.
Naseem walked back by Faryal's left side. He and Amalia leaned over as she held the donor heart with a soft grip just hovering within Faryal's chest cavity.
Naseem turned to the technologist and ordered, "Three-zero double-armed polypropylene suture."
The technologist retrieved a needle and placed it in the neutral zone. "Suture needle down."
The surgeon took the needle as the technologist placed polypropylene suture in the neutral zone. He took the suture as well and held the needle up to the OR lights—threading it with the suture.
Naseem flipped down his surgical loupes and returned over the surgical site as they aimed into the blood-filled chest of her best friend.
The two watched closely. Amalia applied forceps to open the wounds of the donor heart's left atrium wide. Naseem punctured the wound with the suture needle. Then went over to grab the sharp end and pull it out through the other side—along with enough of the trailing suture.
This man just has an unnatural talent for absolute precision.
Naseem punctured Faryal's left atrium and pulled the needle out, pulling until enough of the trailing suture followed through.
The suture closed a part of the wound as it tightened.
Naseem stopped and looked up from the surgical site. "The pulmonary veins are obstructing my view—" he asked the assistant, "can you hold them?"
Amalia's hands were still opening the donor's atrium wide. The assistant retrieved forceps and stood beside Amalia.
In the surgical site, the assistant applied forceps to push the left pulmonary veins—those just above the donor heart's left atrium—away from Naseem's hands. This allowed him to bring the needle over again and puncture further along the left atrium.
Amalia and the assistant held their places as the surgeon punctured the two, separated left atriums of Faryal and the donor—joining them together.
He pulled.
The wound tightened.
Naseem continued puncturing and pulling until the wound completely closed and the two atriums were connected together through sutures.
The surgeon held out the suture as Amalia leaned over the surgical site with scissors and cut it.
He tied the left atrium's suturing, carefully pulling it through its last puncture. Naseem checked and felt the suturing with his hands.
*
The team had finished suturing Faryal's aorta and superior vena cava, leaving three more points of suturing.
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Elixir of Life
General FictionBrilliant heart surgeon, Naseem Hamed, performs his wife's heart transplant in an emergency and is sued by her father when she dies. A broker for black market organs then approaches Naseem to perform an illegal heart transplant- by harvesting an in...
