Girish Kumar celebrated 10 years of his second heart transplant in the company of his doctors and well-wishers at Lisie Hospital in Kochi on Wednesday.
An IT professional and a native of Palakkad, he had undergone his first transplant at the hospital, at the age of 38 in 2013. The second transplant was performed on March 6, 2014 after he developed infection in one of the heart valves and was admitted in a serious condition.
As Jose Chacko Periapuram, the cardio-thoracic surgeon who led the surgery watched, Mr. Kumar received the recognition from the India Book of Records for his fighting spirit and the 10th anniversary of his heart re-transplant surgery on Wednesday. He thanked all those who helped him in returning to normal life.
Mr. Kumar suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, where heart muscles lose their elasticity and slowly get ballooned out. He also suffered from Ankylosing spondylitis and had a hip joint replacement eight months after the first transplant.
He had suffered two cardiac arrests before he was subjected to the heart transplant in March 2014. The doctors carried out a 10-hour operation after they got a matching heart from a brain-dead patient at the right time.
