A Missouri man whose organs stopped functioning due to his 10-year vaping habit was saved in an unconventional way: by getting breast implants.
“I thought it was amazing, kind of funny,” Davey Bauer, 34, told CBS News of the unorthodox operation, which took place in May at Northwestern Medical Center in Chicago.
“It was at the end of the road,” Dr. Ankit Bharat, the center’s chief of Thoracic Surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute, said of the successful last-minute effort.
The St. Louis resident started smoking cigarettes when he was 21 years old. However, he switched to vaping in 2014 because, like many young people, he thought it was a healthier way to get his nicotine fix, People reported.
The landscaper reportedly smoked one cartridge a day, which is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes, according to the National Library of Medicine.
“I thought it was really funny,” David Bauer said while reflecting on how breast implants saved her. He is shown above after being hospitalized with the flu in April 2023. Northwestern Medicine
However, everything seemed to be going well until last April, when the Missourian came down with the flu.
He was later infected with a virulent strain of Pseudomonas bacteria, which causes infections that are difficult to remedy amid rising antibiotic resistance, People reported.
His condition deteriorated to the point that his lungs began to liquefy, according to Dr. Rade Tomic, director of Northwestern’s lung transplant program.
The situation got so bad that Bauer’s medical team in St. Louis reportedly considered withdrawing medical care because they thought they could no longer save him.
Surgeons prepare to add life-saving implants. Northwestern Medicine The implants are shown before the procedure was completed. Northwestern Medicine
Bauer was taken to Northwestern Medical Center in Chicago, where he went into cardiac arrest upon arrival.
The hospital realized that Bauer would not survive a lung transplant in his current state and determined they had to clear the infection before performing surgery, a decision that would require removing “both lungs,” according to Tomic.
That’s when breast implants came into the equation.
After removing both of his lungs, the surgical team kept Bauer alive with an external synthetic lung and then placed DD breast implants in his chest cavity to prevent his heart from slipping out of position.
It was the first time the operation was performed at Northwestern and effectively closed the gap between medical and cosmetic surgery.
Surgeons work in the operating room on lung transplant patient Bauer. Northwestern Medicine “We had to come up with something very creative,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat (left, with Bauer), chief of Thoracic Surgery at Northwestern Medical Center and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. Northwest Medicine
“We had to come up with something very creative,” Bharat said. “This is the only way we can logically create a solution that can give the patient a fighting chance.”
Fortunately, Bauer’s impromptu boob job seemed to work.
Within 24 hours, the team found donated lungs that matched the patient’s infected ones and were successfully implanted after removing the bad ones, as well as the breast implants.
After spending several months in intensive care, Bauer was discharged in September.
His old lungs were severely infected. Northwestern Medicine “I feel very blessed. I mean, it’s amazing,” said the recovering Bauer, shown with his girlfriend, Susan Gore. “I have a second chance at life.” Northwestern Medicine
He will remain in Chicago for the next year so doctors can make sure there are no problems with his new lungs.
Bauer now says he feels “blessed” to be alive.
“It’s amazing. I got a second chance at life,” gushed the Missourian, who also sees the humor in the procedure.
In honor of the unlikely treatment, doctors gifted the patient a T-shirt emblazoned with “DD Davey,” a nickname he plans to adopt and use as his gaming profile.
Meanwhile, Bharat calls Bauer’s case “remarkable because it shows that we can keep patients alive after removing their lungs using new technology, which can be transformative for many critically ill patients.”
Bauer holds up his T-shirt emblazoned with “DD Davey” at a news conference. Northwestern Medicine Bauer is all smiles with his girlfriend. He started vaping because he thought it was safer than smoking conventional cigarettes. Northwestern Medicine
The doctor believes vaping certainly played a role in his life-threatening illness, given that he was otherwise “young and healthy.”
“Lungs are designed to breathe clean air; they are not designed to inhale smoke,” he observed.
Bauer is now using his near-fatal saga as a cautionary tale to warn people about the dangers of e-cigarettes.
“I can see how stupid that habit was,” he said.
In fact, Bauer is not the first to nearly die from vaping, which some experts say is potentially more dangerous than smoking traditional cigarettes.
Last summer, a New Hampshire fitness fanatic and aspiring MMA fighter had part of his lung removed at age 20 after it became filled with black spots, which he attributed to his chronic use of e-cigarettes. .
In an effort to curb vaping use among younger people, New York state banned the sale of flavored vaping products in 2019.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn