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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the breathing-a-sigh-of-relief dept.

The lungs you were born with are not necessary to sustain your life:

In what is believed to be the first procedure of its kind in the world, doctors in Canada have saved a young mother's life by resorting to a radical solution – they removed her lungs for six days while she waited for a transplant. In April, Melissa Benoit arrived at a Toronto hospital with a severe lung infection. Doctors soon realised that Benoit, who had been born with cystic fibrosis, had just hours to live, leading them to consider the unprecedented approach.

[...] In mid-April, a team of 13 began a nine-hour surgery to remove Benoit's lungs. Filled with mucous, each lung was swollen and as hard as a football, said Keshavjee. "Technically, it was difficult to get them out of her chest." Hours later, her condition began to dramatically improve. "And literally within minutes – it was probably around 20 minutes after having taken those infected lungs out – her blood pressure normalised, and they could remove all the blood-pressure-supporting drugs and just leave her on the pumps that were providing the circulation," Keshavjee told the Canadian Press.

A small artificial lung was connected to Benoit's heart, while other devices oxygenated and circulated her blood. As they waited for replacement lungs to become available, doctors wondered how long she could be supported like this. "We didn't know if we'd get [them] in one day or one month," said Keshavjee. Six days later a pair of donor lungs became available and Benoit underwent a successful lung transplant.

Also at BBC.


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Uncle_Al on Wednesday February 01 2017, @07:49PM

    by Uncle_Al (1108) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @07:49PM (#461759)

    what sort of asshat would even THINK to post this shit?

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @09:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @09:05PM (#461796)

    All comedians are now BANNED by EXECUTIVE ORDER! Inappropriate humor will not be tolerated!

    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday February 02 2017, @01:22AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Thursday February 02 2017, @01:22AM (#461852)

      By most accounts, it's the party that's not prevalent that would make such a decree. Residing rulers think it's totes fine long as you let the free market decide if you're funny or not, ya know, for better or worse.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 01 2017, @10:37PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @10:37PM (#461820) Journal

    If she had died, would it make you feel better???

    How many times I almost died as a kid and ended up laughing... Humour is good: even dark humour!

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday February 01 2017, @11:02PM

    by Bot (3902) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @11:02PM (#461831) Journal

    Other things that are not funny:
    Death, war, hunger, taxes and systemd.
    All of those have been discussed in the internet and made fun of. That does not implies we consider them less unfunny. Especially systemd.

    Consider that my joke would have been like:

    "Unbelievable. How did she manage six days without being able shout to her husband!"

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday February 02 2017, @05:10PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday February 02 2017, @05:10PM (#462014)

      She's Canadian: "Who apologized on her behalf for 6 days?"

  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday February 02 2017, @02:09AM

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday February 02 2017, @02:09AM (#461863)

    We laugh to keep from crying.

    Go ahead, think of any truly funny joke that doesn't have some form of suffering at its heart. I recall a comedian/comedy-club owner's response to people's bafflement about Robin William's suicide, the essence being that comedians are as a rule miserable people who trot out their innermost demons to dance for our amusement.