Audrey Edwards
The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: One was bursting to answer questions while the other seemed introverted.

Tee Hui Yi excitedly gushed about how she wanted to meet two of her idols: songbird Datuk Siti Nurhaliza and Akademi Fantasia finalist Lotter from Sabah.

Lang Kong Akon was bashful when National Heart Institute (IJN) mechanical heart programme director Dr Mohd Ezani Mohd Taib ribbed him about being single and wanting to find a life partner.

Hui Yi and Lang Kong made their first media appearance in IJN yesterday after their respective transplant operations.

However, 14-year-old Hui Yi and 39-year-old Lang Kong were grateful to their donors and families for having given them a second shot at life.

“I want to thank the donor and his parents. They have saved my life,” was Lang Kong’s reply while Hui Yi said: “Thank you very much. I am really better.”

Hui Yi underwent a second heart transplant on Oct 5 after her body rejected the first heart transplant the previous day.

Lang Kong received his lungs from the donor whose heart Hui Yi’s body had rejected.

“I want to go back in time to celebrate Chinese New Year,” Hui Yi told reporters at the physiotherapy department.

She was also impatient to get back to school, saying she wanted to visit as many places as she could once she was discharged.

Lang Kong said he could breathe much better after the operation. He was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2003.

He had been on the waiting list for new lungs for more than a year. Prior to the surgery, the machine operator from Sarawak was treated at the Institute of Respiratory Medicine.

Dr Ezani said Lang Kong was undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation to strengthen his body, breathing and muscles.

Lang Kong was able to do “very heavy physical exercises” such as climbing stairs and cycling, he added.

He is in the normal ward and his body has not shown any signs of organ rejection. Doctors hope to discharge him by next week.

Dr Ezani expects Hui Yi to be transferred out of the intensive care unit by next week; and possibly discharged between four and six weeks.

She is also being tube fed with high calorie liquid to help her gain weight and speed up her recovery.

Annie Freeda Cruez
New Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR: It was so typical of Tee Hui Yi. The moment the 14-year-old caught sight of the press through the window of the Intensive Care Unit, she grabbed her small white board, scribbled a message and held it up.
“Thank U for everything and everybody concern and well wishes.”

As the media people filed into the ICU, she held up the board for them, wiping a tear from her eye.

Hui Yi, who captured the hearts of Malaysians with her bravery as she waited for more than a year for a heart transplant, was taken off the ventilator yesterday at 10am. And her doctors at the National Heart Institute are very satisfied with her progress.

IJN heart and lung transplant clinical director Dr Mohamed Ezani Md Taib said Hui Yi was very excited when the ventilator was removed. She wanted to speak but her throat was too sore from the tube.
“She likes to talk and eat,” he laughed, adding that even the medical team found it hard to believe that she made it.

“We are emotional about it too, to see that the tubes are out and she can talk. It’s very difficult to explain how we feel. We came very close to losing her.”

As for her parents, he added, there were no words to describe how happy they were to be able to talk to her, feed her and hold her hands.

“It’s a miracle,” said Dr Ezani.

After just more than a year on a mechanical heart, Hui Yi had a first transplant in the early hours of Thursday. But her body began to reject the heart from a 15-year-old who died in a traffic accident in Ipoh on Wednesday.

By some miracle, another heart became available and she had a second transplant on Friday morning. She received the heart of a 20-year-old traffic victim from Johor.

Also on Wednesday, a 39-year-old Sarawakian named Lang Kong received the 15-year-old boy’s lungs in a double transplant.

Dr Ezani said he was doing very well and had walked out of the ICU cubicles to do his exercises yesterday.

IJN transplant co-ordinator Noor Salina Othman said they now had four patients waiting for heart transplants and heart-lung transplants. Institute of Respiratory Medicine respiratory physician Dr Ashaari Yunus said they had nine patients waiting for double lung transplants.

Anyone who wishes to be an organ donor, or donate the organs of a brain-dead relative, can contact the National Organ Transplant Co-ordinating Centre at 03-26942705/704, 03-26156576, or the toll free line at 1-800-88-9080

The Star

PETALING JAYA: For every single tear of frustration that Tee Hui Yi has shed, her staunch buddy Mohd Fikri Nor Azmi has shared it with her in spirit.

He empathises with Hui Yi’s loneliness for having to be cooped up in a hospital without visitors, he is familiar with her cries when the body is racked with pain from another round of fighting infection.

He understands too well when Hui Yi tells him how frightened she is, as days of waiting for a heart donor turns to months and then a year.

As the country’s first person to be put on a mechanical heart device in July 2005, Mohd Fikri, 17, has been a great comfort to Hui Yi during her year-old stay in the National Heart Institute (IJN) while hooked to a heavy mechanical heart.

After about five months of waiting, Fikri went through a successful heart transplant in December.

He was discharged from IJN in March this year.

When Hui Yi was put on the mechanical heart device, the hospital invited Fikri to give her emotional support. Since then, the two have developed a friendship.

“I like Hui Yi. She takes advice well. She was scared because time was ticking away and there was no donor yet,” said Fikri who visited Hui Yi regularly and attended her 14th birthday celebrations in March at IJN.

Hui Yi regards Fikri as her idol, someone who had fought, and won, the battle.

Fikri’s mother, Fatimah Osman, said both families shared a close bond. Just before Hui Yi underwent the first heart operation, both mothers spoke over the phone. Fatimah told her friend, Dina Bato Sam Bua, to be strong and have faith in God.

“I was also anxious. It was like my own daughter on the operation table,” said Fatimah, who had opened up her home in Cheras to Dina Bato several times, just to give Dina Batosome breathing space away from the hospital.

As for Fikri, he is studying hard to prepare for the SPM and when he prays, he never fails to thank God for another chance to live.

“I am also praying for Hui Yi. Ours is a friendship with a lot of heart-to-heart talks. She needs to rest after her operation, but when her heart is strong again, boy, we will be talking some more.

“I want to tell her how wonderful it is to have a normal life. Even a shower is so enjoyable. I could not bathe for five months when I was on the mechanical heart because the machine could not get wet.

“I am happy. I know Hui Yi will be happy too. Life is good!” said Fikri.

The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Tee Hui Yi is indeed a miracle girl. The teenager, who is making steady progress after a second heart transplant on Friday, had no luck with six potential donors in the past nine months.

Yet, in a space of 24 hours, she had two suitable donors. The first failed and the doctors are now “cautiously optimistic” about the second heart transplant.

Since January this year, there had been six possible donors.

On June 15, the heart of a donor was rejected for being incompatible.

The following month, the heart of a man who weighed more than 100kg was rejected. Days later, there was another heart available but the donor was too young, just five.

On July 31, the heart of an accident victim was offered to Hui Yi but unfortunately, the organ was found to be damaged.

The fifth chance for Hui Yi came in September but the donor was suffering from hypertension and diabetes.

Then just into Ramadan, a private hospital in Alor Star offered her the organ but that donor was found to be a hepatitis carrier.

On Thursday, finally, her luck turned. Hui Yi received a heart from a 15-year-old boy diagnosed to be brain dead but soon after the operation her body started rejecting it.

The next day, Hui Yi got the heart of a 20-year-old mechanic who was declared brain dead after a road accident in Johor.

National Heart Institute heart and lung transplant unit clinical director Dr Mohamed Ezani Md Taib said Hui Yi was making good progress after her second transplant.

He said she was responding to calls, was moving and obeying commands through signals.

“When the doctors asked her which areas she felt pain, she was able to point and was able to move her feet and hands.

“This is good progress and doctors are cautiously happy. We hope for the best in the days to come,” he told a press conference yesterday.

Despite her stable condition, Dr Mohamed Ezani said Hui Yi was still in critical condition and not out of danger yet.

He said an echocardiogram was conducted yesterday morning and the test showed the heart was functioning normally.

The doctor said she had no breathing problems but was put on a ventilator as a precaution.

He added that her wounds were cleaned yesterday at the operating theatre, explaining that it was safer to do it there rather than the Intensive Care Unit.

“She had to be given doses of immunosuppressant and the intra-aortic balloon pump that had been inserted into the vessel was removed in the morning,” he said, adding that Hui Yi’s progress would be closely monitored over the next 72 hours.

He said if everything went well, she would be moved to the normal ward in about five days and fed through a tube.

Once she is moved to the ward, he said doctors would continue to conduct biopsies with a tube placed in her heart to check for any infection.

Bernama

PUTRAJAYA, Oct 5 (Bernama) — Tee Hui Yi, 14, had a second heart transplant early this morning after her body rejected the first heart transplanted on her Thursday, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek disclosed today.

Dr Chua said the second heart transplant was performed on her from 2am to 8am at the National Heart Institute, Kuala Lumpur.

“Her condition is more stable now although still critical,” he told a press conference after chairing the meeting of the Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Action Committee at the National Anti-Drug Agency here.

Dr Chua said Tee was lucky as there was a ready organ donor from Johor Baharu after her body rejected the first heart given to her.

Tee had been dependant on a mechanical heart for a year before getting the first heart donated by the family of a youth from Sitiawan, Perak, yesterday.

Dr Chua declined to reveal the identity of the second donor as requested by the donor’s family, saying that “all organ donors hope they are not disturbed by the media”.

“The government thanks the donor and hopes that the kind gesture could be emulated by others.”

He said about 6,000 people were killed in road accidents in this country each year, with 1,500 of them going into a coma or were brain dead by the time they reached the hospital.

“This group is the main source of organ donations for those in need of transplants,” he added.

Dr Chua said Malaysia needed 1,200 kidneys, 450 hearts and 200 livers each year to save the lives of patients.

“Even in fatal accident cases, we can still save the lives of others. And I understand that no religion is against organ donation,” he said.