Sigh of relief

Double Lung Transplant gives eight-year-old new lease on life

Asif and Nabila Jutt are breathing a sigh of relief because their eight-year-old son can finally breathe.

On April 21 at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Tahir Asif became the province’s youngest double lung transplant recipient in history. The procedure was only the fifth pediatric lung transplant ever performed in Alberta.

Tahir was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes mucus to build up and clog some of the organs in the body, particularly the lungs which makes breathing difficult. Without the lung transplant, Tahir was not expected to live past the summer.

“It was very hard work just keeping him alive waiting for the transplant,” says Dr. Jackson Wong, pediatric pulmonologist, clinical lead in Pediatric Lung Transplantation at the Stollery and Tahir’s primary physician. “We were barely controlling his infections with antibiotics. He was very, very sick.”

Dr. John Mullen, surgical director of thoracic transplantation at the University of Alberta Hospital performed the transplant with a nine-member team that included nurses, surgeons and anesthesiologists.

According to Dr. Mullen, the seven-hour operation “was very similar to an adult lung transplant, only the connections we have to make are a lot smaller, which increases the complexity.”

For Tahir and his family, the transplant was the happy ending to a very long and difficult journey. Over the past year, Tahir has spent 245 of the 365 days in Unit 4C4 at the Stollery, the longest a patient has ever stayed on that unit.

“The family is just phenomenal,” says Dr. Wong. “This has been an emotional roller coaster for them.”

To be closer to the hospital, Asif and Nabila moved from Yellowknife last year, along with their two other children, Tahir’s 10-year-old brother Tayyeb and six-year-old sister Afra.

“Our other children have had a difficult time because we weren’t always home with them as much as they wanted us to be,” says Tahir’s father Asif.

As Tahir’s condition worsened, his family never gave up waiting for a miracle.

“We still had hope but it was hard,” says Asif. “We knew the reality.”

And yet even after their miracle came it was bittersweet.

“After the transplant, everyone was crying for Tahir,” his mother, Nabila said as she choked back tears. “But I was crying for the other mom — crying because her child had died and mine had lived. I cried for many days for that mother.”

Tahir’s recovery has been remarkable. He came off his breathing tube four days after the transplant. He was moved out of Intensive Care after seven days and was eating and drinking on his own after 14 days.

“His results are just excellent,” says Dr. Wong. “I’m very pleased with his progress.”

While the double lung transplant does not cure Tahir of cystic fibrosis, it does give him the chance to be a normal boy again.

With his new lungs and summer just around the corner, Tahir is looking forward to doing the same things other boys his age enjoy like playing in the park and riding his bike.

“I can’t wait to go down the slide and on the swings without my oxygen,” he said.

For Asif and Nabila, they are looking forward to something much more simple but precious.

“Now we can just live together as a family again. And get some rest.”