On Thursday evening, I received another call from a transplant surgeon at the UKE. He asked if I was interested in going on a donor run that would leave at 1:10 AM on Friday morning. Without hesitation, I responded, “Yes!” In ten hours, I received the call, rode in 4 ambulances, flew in a private jet, went to Berlin, and watched surgeons harvest the heart and lungs. It was definitely an exciting Friday morning.
The surgeons and I left the UKE in an ambulance heading to the Hamburg airport. We took a 45-min flight in a small private plane to the Berlin airport and from there, took an ambulance to the hospital. Although we were in a hurry to get to the hospital, the driver did not use the siren because the streets were relatively empty at that hour of the night. Once we arrived, the Berlin surgeons started the surgery. The heart was the first organ to be harvested, but in this case, the heart was not used for transplantation. Next, our surgeons got started on cutting out the lungs. Once the heart is out of the body, everyone has to work very quickly and as a team. I was pleasantly surprised to see both teams of surgeons working together to keep the organs in the best condition possible. Who says surgeons have big egos?
Even before the lungs were cut out, the body was constantly being filled with ice-cold saline, to prevent too much tissue death in the organs that were being used for transplantation. I’m not sure how many organs were being used from this donor, but I know that the lungs and liver at least. I saw the right and left lungs being packed in two different bags filled with liquid saline and frozen saline. The bags were then packed in separate polystyrene boxes. As soon as the boxes were packed, our surgeons were out of there. I got to see a few minutes of the liver harvesting before I rushed out of the operating room to change out of my scrubs. When they say “donor run” they really mean run because it’s a race against the clock.
Our team left the hospital around 6 AM in an ambulance. This time we used the ambulance lights and siren because we had a transplant organ that needed to get to the recipient ASAP. Since I’ve never ridden in an ambulance before, I loved my first experience. I just watched as the cars parted like the Red Sea during rush hour traffic. At that point, I wished my car had an ambulance siren. There were a few cars that did not move out of the way for us, and our driver did not hide his frustration with these drivers. My suggestion to other drivers is to move to the right of the street as soon as you hear sirens or see the emergency lights. It can really make a difference in someone’s life.
We were able to relax a bit once we were on the plane back to Hamburg. The transplant organization treats the surgeons (and those with them) very well, providing food and snacks to sustain them during the travel time. When we sat down in the plane, the surgeons looked around for our food bags and we were each provided with two sandwiches. There was also a candy bowl full of goodies. Since I had to sit backwards on a small plane, I didn’t eat too much. This was fortunate for my three male travel companions who were more than happy to help me not waste my second sandwich.
Once we arrived at the UKE, I scrubbed in again and delivered the left lung to the operating room. Both lungs were being transplanted, so another person brought in the right lung. I was able to watch about 10 min of the recipient operation before I had to go prepare for the morning lab meeting. Although I had only gotten 1.5 hours of sleep that night, I was wide-awake and was able to work the whole day in the lab until 5 PM. I was tempted to go back to the operating room to continue watching the transplant surgery, but my boss reminded me that I needed sleep. The transplant surgery was longer than expected and there were some anticipated challenges, but the doctors expect the patient to recover. Please pray that the patient will show signs of improvement and for much-needed rest for the whole team of surgeons.
I have had many exciting experiences here in Hamburg, even if I haven’t been able to post about all of them. It’s a struggle to document everything while also trying to take in everything fully. Please ask me to share if you would like to hear more. As always, I would love to hear from you too!
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
wow, it sounds like your newly developed bulging calf muscles really came in handy for all the running! :)
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