Sichuan online reporter Li Huan photography Xiao Yuyang (some pictures provided by West China Hospital)
On October 24, the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Pediatric Surgery of West China Hospital of Sichuan University. It is also the 90th birthday of Professor Hu Tingze, the founder of the department.
At the celebration site, the appearance of a pair of 10-year-old twins made Hu Tingze very happy. 10 years ago, a pair of conjoined babies with their lives on the line were taken to Huaxi Hospital, and many Chinese celebrities, including him, snatched the twins back from the hands of the god of death.
The twins, named Hua Hua and Xi Xi, stepped onto the stage and bowed deeply to Hu Tingze: "Thank you Grandpa for giving us a second life." Elder Hu was very relieved and hugged the two children.
Hua Hua and Xi Xi are now in the fourth grade of primary school in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, and their academic performance is among the best in the school. According to their parents, the two of them now live almost indistinguishable from those of the average child, except that they need to avoid strenuous exercise.
Hu Lao's relationship with the twins dates back to a thrilling late night in 2010.
This is a pair of conjoined babies, less than 30 hours after birth from Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, rushed to Huaxi Hospital, their abdomen, liver are connected, the heart, blood vessels are also crossed. Completing conjoined infant separation surgery is a major problem all over the world, and West China Hospital decided to give it a go.
Since the babies were too light to withstand the surgical trauma when they were admitted to the hospital, it was decided after expert consultation that they would be treated in the ICU for a period of time and weigh 6.5 kg before the operation was performed.
Hu Tingze, who was 80 years old at the time, as an expert in the medical team, personally went to the scene of the operation to direct. At that time, Dozens of medical staff, including An Qi, deputy director of the department of thoracic surgery, Zeng Yong, director of the department of hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, Cen Ying, director of the burn plastic surgery department, and surgical anesthesia, did their best for the operation. The sisters have separate hearts but share a pericardium. Doctors divide the common pericardium in two and separate and repair the blood vessels that occur in the heart, which is also the key to the success or failure of the entire operation. After about 12 hours of surgery, the heart separation surgery was successful. Two conjoined babies held together for 41 days and successfully "split". For some time after that, the sisters successfully passed the threshold of incision infection, liver function recovery, ventilator evacuation, severe infection, etc., and they were finally discharged from the hospital 160 days after admission. In order to thank Huaxi Hospital, his parents named the two sisters "Huahua" and "Xixi".
At that time, the anesthesia for Huahua and Xixi was Hu Tingze's eldest daughter-in-law, Professor Zuo Yunxia, deputy director of the Department of Anesthesiology of West China Hospital. Looking back on that scene 10 years ago, she still remembers it vividly. It is quite difficult to inject anesthesia into a baby, let alone inject anesthesia into two babies at the same time. "We have cooperated with multiple disciplines to complete the first conjoined infant segmentation surgery in West China Hospital, which also highlights the superb medical technology level of West China Hospital."
After the operation, the sisters were sent to the neonatal ICU ward, and Elder Hu repeatedly told the medical staff that the end of the operation did not mean that the treatment was completed, because the child's trauma was large, the risk of infection was also very high, and it was necessary to pay attention to the changes in various indicators at any time.
After 160 days of treatment, Hua hua and Xi Xi were cured and discharged from the hospital. It is understood that they will undergo scar repair surgery after the age of 18.