Viktoria Ivanova is ready to go back to school

The spin of the Russian Roulette left Viktoria Ivanova with a rather bad deal. When this Siberian girl was about 10, they discovered she had a potentially fatal heart condition — restrictive cardio myopathy. They told her that it was as if she had the heart of a really old man, the ventricle walls abnormally rigid, unable to pump well. The only hope for the girl, the doctors grimly told her family, was a heart transplant.

Viktoria was once again dealt a lousy card, as it turned out that the law in Russia does not allow for paediatric heart transplants.

Her parents looked frantically for options outside the country, and inside the country to raise money for what was going to be a very expensive procedure. It came in, but not enough, and, meanwhile, they heard of K.R. Balakrishnan, a cardiac surgeon from India. He came highly recommended. That’s when things finally seemed to turn around. With the intervention of a journalist friend, Iulia says the issue went up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Talking to The Hindu through her translator Najiullah, she says, “Usually the Russian government provides assistance to children to go abroad for treatment. It is usually Europe.” “I had heard so much about Dr. Balakrishnan, I had decided if Viktoria was to have a transplant, then he’d have to do it. Happily for us, we heard that President Putin gave the go ahead. And here we are.”

Viktoria came to Chennai mid May with her mother and grandmother Natalia. When she checked into Fortis Malar hospital, where Dr. Balakrishnan heads the Cardiothoracic and Transplant Surgery unit, the temperature was hovering at a blistering 40 degrees Celsius, the polar opposite of the -40 degrees Celsius she is used to in Irkutsk, Siberia.

But for the family it was lovely, not only did they enjoy the warmth of the sun, but also the warmth of the people here. Viktoria received a heart in September, the donor a young man who was declared brain dead after an accident in Tiruvarur.

The team from Fortis Malar flew to Thanjavur where he had been admitted, retrieved the heart and flew back to sew it into Viktoria. “For me, it was like science fiction — you take a heart from a boy in Thanjavur and put it in a girl from Irkutsk and it beats,” says Dr. Balakrishnan. For him, this was special personally, because his mother’s family is from Thanjavur.

It was not easy though. Dr. Balakrishnan says hearts are not easily available for children. Adult hearts are bigger and heavier, and placing them in the child’s thoracic cavity is akin to putting the engine of a truck in a small car, he explains. Only eventually does the heart get used to the child’s rhythm.

Indeed it has. A shy Viktoria tells her mum that she is ‘very, very happy’ because she can walk, eat whatever she wants and go back to school. Iulia says, “I am so thankful, my daughter lives again. We are ready to go back and we are taking the Indian heart home with us.”