Man Receives Life Saving Surgery at K.H.M.H.

Tonight, we bring you the inspiring story of sixty-one-year-old Caryl Meighan, who is expressing heartfelt gratitude for being alive after receiving life-saving heart surgery at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Meighan was told last November that he needed surgery to replace a mitral valve in his heart. Earlier today, we sat down with Meighan, who shared that just a few months earlier, he had tragically lost his brother to the same condition. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with the full story of Meighan’s remarkable recovery.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

 

The ticking you are hearing is coming from Caryl Meighan’s chest. It’s coming from a valve placed inside his chest. It’s that valve that is keeping him alive today. Meighan is a survivor. About ten months ago, the sixty-year-old began experiencing pain in his chest and a shortness of breath. He sought medical advice and was told that he would need to undergo heart surgery to fix the issue. Meighan was scared.

 

Caryl Meighan, Patient

“Now for me it was very a bit scary because I had lost my brother during the same surgery, similar to that, but the only difference was that he did his surgery in November. Los Angeles, California.  Just six months before I was there. When I mention it to my woman and family members, he sent up some red flags like you sure and where are you? Where are you going to do? I tell him when I’m going to do it at K.H.M.H.”

 

The word ‘surgery’ is alarming enough, but “heart surgery”? That would scare even the bravest soul. But, despite his anxiety about the procedure, Meighan knew he couldn’t continue living in that condition. He recognised that he needed to undergo surgery for the sake of his future and that of his family.

 

 

 

Britney Gordon

“What was like the breaking point for you that really made you think I have to try and do it?”

 

 

 

 

Caryl Meighan

“My mobility, the tiredness, I was feeling it was coming on more and I couldn’t do certain things for myself. I was that was getting into my head. I figured, I gotta deal with this. I start launching more questions to doctor about the surgery and stuff like that. For me, I really made up my mind to do it after I was directed to a patient that had a year or so earlier successfully and go to surgery done by the I’m going to be the same doctor and after speaking to the lady, she’s a little bit older than me.  I felt comfort. I said to myself, if she can do it, I can and then I saw her mobility or she was moving around yes, that’s what I want to do. That was when I decided I’m going to do it.”

 

Meighan’s surgery took place in June at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in Belize City, and since then he has been recovering. Everything had to be perfect to allow for a high percentage of success. That is why anesthesiologist Lydia Blake and her colleagues had to properly prepare for this life-saving surgery.

 

 

 

Lydia Blake, Anesthesiologist

“I remember we had to cancel him the first month because of the same breathing problem he had  and the day before we did it, I went to visit him with my anesthesiologist that comes Dr. Rice that came for doing the surgery because I told him this is one of my patients that they really need us to put all our eyes and teeths together because he has everything and  he will be a challenge.  And he was a challenge for me just in the intubation after I put on this arterial lines. I had to sit him in a sitting position to do, intubate him, got him, thank God.”

 

Though challenging, Meighan’s surgery was a success. Blake says that Meighan was one of the most difficult cases she’s experienced in her eleven-year career.  But it is success stories like his that make her grateful for the work that she does.

 

Lydia Blake

“I just went on my knees and I thank God and I say, these are the things that make me want to continue to be part of the cardiac team. And not just the cardiac team, but working in KHMH, because we do miracles every day here. Despite everything, we come and we give our all and we do. And the greatest satisfaction is when I see those patients walking out there and remembering me and calling me, Hi, Nurse Blake.”

 

 

And it is because of the nurses and doctors at the K.H.M.H. that Meighen is now able to walk around his house, laugh, and be with his family. For that, he is grateful.  A procedure like this is not unusual for the team at the K.H.M.H. Meighen is around the seventieth open heart surgery patient whose life has been saved by the doctors and nurses.

 

 

 

Dr. Adrian Coye, Cardiologist

“The most important thing is that he had the opportunity to have the procedure done here in Belize to be around his family in very close support. And therefore, again, it justifies what we are continuing to do which is to build, a service advanced cardiac program that will service all our patients in their times of needs and of course in the future we’d be able to do emergency heart surgeries.”

 

 

Although still in recovery, Meighen is ready to hop back into action and live his life to its fullest potential.

 

Caryl Meighan

“I plan to recoup and get back to work as soon as possible, you know. That’s it sitting home is kinda killing me, it’s get, I’m bored already.”

 

 

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.