The Godfather: Peter Corris on spare parts
The mind makes strange connections. Recently I was listening to a radio report on a breakthrough made by cardiac surgeons at the Victor Chang Institute in Sydney. My mind instantly went to the opening scene in Woody Allen’s Manhattan, a brilliant film I’ve watched several times. What possible connection could there be?
The medical report explained that surgeons were now able to transplant a heart that had stopped beating into a patient who needed a new one. Previously, a heart was transplantable only while still functioning, albeit at a much reduced level. This is because in Australia death is legally defined as ‘brain death’, meaning that, with the appropriate consent given, life support for a dying person could be turned off and, after a specified waiting period, the still ‘live’ heart removed when all brain activity had ceased. This gave a very narrow window of opportunity for the transplant to take place and it had to be done ‘on the spot’.
In some countries, apparently, death is defined as ‘heart death’, meaning that all heart function has thoroughly ceased. Under these circumstances no transplant is possible.
The Sydney surgeons have devised a method of reviving a non-functioning heart and preserving it outside the body cavity in such a condition that it may used. This widens the window of opportunity, stretches the time available for the operations, increases the number of available hearts and permits transplanting in ‘heart death’ countries.
One of the doctors stressed that the crucial advance was available now, and two patients were already doing well as a result of it.
In Woody Allen’s film he is sitting in Elaine’s of New York with friends and poses a question: which of us would have the courage to jump into the water to save a drowning person? He adds that it wouldn’t apply to him because he can’t swim. I feel that I’m in that position as a potential organ donor. I fully support organ donation and when I held a driving licence would have ticked the consent box, except that now it doesn’t apply to me.
My heart, according to my cardiologist, suffered such damage from a couple of occlusions (a word I’ve wanted to use for years) that part of it ‘is like a piece of leather’. A quadruple bypass keeps it going but it’s damaged goods.
Eyes? Still worse. A squint tied off years ago, cataracts removed and artificial lenses introduced, laser scars from treatment of advanced retinopathy and a cornea graft holding well, but who knows?
Liver? A long story there. After a lifetime of drinking it has survived quite well but is occasionally ‘inflamed’ and steps have to be taken – that is, steps away from the merlot and the chardonnay. Kidneys okay, apparently, and likewise the lungs, although I did smoke for about ten years before quitting 30 years ago, so there’s bound to be some damage.
So, although I applaud the work of the Victor Chang Institute and am myself in debt to the spare parts bank, having had a cornea graft, as an organ donor I’m a non-starter.
