He returns to running after fulminant myocarditis and heart transplant

A year ago he was fighting between life and death, undergoing a very delicate heart transplant due to a fulminant myocarditisnow runs the Turin half marathon together with the doctors who saved him: it’s the story of Damiana 49-year-old amateur runner, who experienced a roller coaster of emotions, fear and joy over 365 days. It had all happened during the race: after ten kilometers he felt a strange pain in his chest, then within a few days his health conditions worsened. The diagnosis it’s terrible: it’s one Fulminant giant cell myocarditisa disease potentially deadlybecause the heart is no longer able to support the rhythm of the body.

Fear and intervention

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Damiano was urgently transferred to the Molinette Hospital of the City of Health and Science in Turin, first to coronary intensive care, then to cardiac surgery. The However, conditions are worsening again, so much so that it even requires ECMO, extracorporeal circulation. The heart gave out, and Damiano was immediately placed on the transplant list. After eight days a heart compatible for transplant arrives: “The conditions were extremely critical, but precisely in these cases the transplant represents the only concrete possibility of survival. The operation was complex, but it went well and allowed Damiano to be given a new chance at life” explains the Professor Massimo Boffiniwho performed the surgery together with Dr. Erika Simonato.

The return

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Damiano makes it, without ever giving up. He is transferred to the IRCCS Fondazione Maugeri in Veruno for rehabilitation: he must “relearn” how to move, use your heart (in the true sense of the word) and above all he wants to run again. He starts walking, then goes back to work, and finally starts again for real: the few steps of the first days become kilometersand even some doctors join the training, in particular Dr. Matteo Giunta. One year after the transplant, Damiano will even return to running a half marathon: that of Turin on 19 April. A non-trivial date, because it is the National Day for the Donation and Transplantation of organs and tissues: how to close a circle already drawn by destiny. AND The Molinette doctors will also run with himprecisely to testify that you can live again even after a heart transplant. “Returning to running and participating in this race means closing the circle that opened just a year ago” says Domenico. “It’s not just a race but a symbol, a message, just when we celebrate the milestone of 1300 transplants” says the Professor Mauro Rinaldidirector of the Heart and Lung Transplant Center of the Molinette hospital of the City of Health and Science of Turin: “Our Center has been able evolve over timemarking important milestones in Transplant Medicine at both a national and international level.”