Fragile Lives. Stephen Westaby

      

      

       copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

      FIRST EDITION

      © Stephen Westaby 2017

      Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

      Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

      Text illustrations © Dee McLean

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      Stephen Westaby asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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      Source ISBN: 9780008196783

      Ebook edition: February 2017 ISBN: 9780008196776

      Version: 2017-12-02

       dedication

      This book is dedicated to my wonderful children Gemma and Mark, and to my granddaughters Alice and Chloe.

      contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Foreword

       1 The Ether Dome

       2 Humble Beginnings

       3 Lord Brock’s Boots

4 Township Boy

       5 The Girl with No Name

       6 The Man with Two Hearts

       7 Saving Julie’s Heart

       8 The Black Banana

       9 Domino Heart

       10 Life on a Battery

       11 Anna’s Story

       12 Mr Clarke

       13 Adrenaline Rush

       14 Despair

       15 Double Jeopardy

       16 Your Life in Their Hands

       Afterword

       Acknowledgements

       Glossary

       About the Publisher

       foreword

      Woody Allen famously said, ‘The brain is my second favourite organ.’ I had the same affinity with the heart. I liked to watch it, stop it, repair it and start it up again, like a mechanic tinkering with an engine beneath the bonnet of a car. When I finally understood how it worked, the rest just followed on. After all, in my younger days I’d been an artist. I simply shifted from brush on canvas to scalpel through human flesh. More hobby than job, and more pleasure than chore, it was simply something I was good at.

      My career followed a curiously erratic course, from self-effacing schoolboy to wildly extrovert medical student, from ruthlessly ambitious young doctor to introverted surgical pioneer and teacher. Throughout this journey I was repeatedly asked what I found so compelling about cardiac surgery. I hope the following pages will make that clear.

      But before launching into the action let me share with you some facts about this vibrant organ. Every heart is different. Some are fat, some are lean. Some are thick, some are thin. Some are fast, some are slow. Just never the same. Most of the 12,000 that I’ve worked on have been desperately sick, causing misery, crushing chest pain, interminable fatigue and terrifying breathlessness.

      What’s so fascinating about the human heart is its movement – the rhythm and efficiency of the thing. The facts are staggering. The heart beats more than 60 times per minute to pump five litres of blood. This adds up to 3,600 beats an hour and 86,400 in 24 hours. It beats more