"We want them to go to school, be active, play games, do all the normal things that an 11-, 12-year-old should do," Jeewa says of young transplant recipients. Aside from regularly taking medication and seeing a cardiologist, she should be able to do what virtually most kids do. What's important now is to make sure Mariam can live the best life she can, he says. Still, transplants are not a cure - they can only extend one's life, says Jeewa, and it's highly likely Mariam's heart will fail at some point in the future. Mariam has ongoing challenges and will have to take immunosuppressant drugs every day for the rest of her life, says Honjo, although pediatric transplant patients tend to fare much better than adults. But obviously, the team as a whole were quite uncertain whether or not she was going to make it," he says. Like Mariam's mom, Honjo leans on mystical terms to explain her survival: "It's magical." (Provided by family)īut as a specialist in complex congenital heart surgery for infants, Honjo was used to tricky operations and says the actual procedure was not as challenging as the broader medical care Mariam required to survive so many interventions. Mariam receives physical therapy after receiving the total artificial heart. Now there was more scarring at the site, and the too-large device had compressed a systemic vein, says Honjo. I can't explain why."Ī heart for Mariam became available two months later, leading to another challenge: removing the device and connecting what amounted to her third heart implant. "It was really, really difficult," says Honjo. During that time, blood and fluid accumulated around the device, requiring another operation. But in her case, that was just too big to close it right away," says Honjo.Īfter surgery, Mariam remained sedated on mechanical ventilation for 16 days. "We really wanted to close because obviously it's hardware sitting in a chest so we can't afford having the infection.
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The cavity was covered with a temporary patch for five days until Mariam's body could adjust to the device and her blood pressure could stabilize. Then it was time to close and the reality of reverse-engineering a device meant for an adult came to the fore, he says.
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When it came time to remove her from the bypass circuit, Mariam bled significantly and Honjo spent "hours and hours" to stop the bleeding. Honjo recounts a 14-hour procedure in which he navigated scars from previous operations and had to place Mariam on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine for four-and-a-half hours. Tubes run from the pumps, out of the chest and into a big wheeled console that operates 24/7 outside of the body. The procedure involves removing the heart's two main pumping chambers and replacing them with mechanical pumps that are surgically attached, explains Jeewa, head of the heart function program at SickKids.
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Aamir Jeewa, Medical Director of the Ventricular Assist Device Program at SickKids, and Dr. She was resuscitated and stabilized in intensive care but doctors recognized that her heart was giving out.ĭr. Her older brother administered CPR while they waited for an ambulance to SickKids. She had open-heart surgery at the age of three and a heart transplant at age seven, but a steady decline at age 11 culminated in cardiac arrest in June 2021.Īntouan Adwar recalls the terrifying day Mariam suddenly collapsed at home. Mariam was born with two forms of congenital heart disease - Ebstein's anomaly caused a leaky valve and cardiomyopathy caused an ill-formed right ventricle. Get the latest local updates right to your inbox.
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Her doctors at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children on Monday detailed their last-ditch measure to save her life when a previous transplant began to fail. Multiple heart surgeries and near-death experiences have earned 12-year-old Mariam Tannous the nickname Mariam Miracle, says her mom.Īnd for good reason: About one year ago the now-thriving pre-teen became the youngest person in Canada, and among the smallest in the world, to receive a device known as a total artificial heart.