Living with another’s liver

He goes about his work, eats whatever he wishes and does everything a 50-year-old would do.
Why does Baratha Calyaneratne stand out from the crowd? Baratha has been living with another’s liver for a year and comes into focus as the latest multi-transplants at the National Hospital and a private hospital in Colombo were performed on November 30.

Sri Lanka has got into the arena of transplants in leaps and bounds with the latest being the harvesting of both lungs, both kidneys and liver from a brain-dead person and transplantation in four patients, MediScene understands.

A new start: Baratha Calyaneratne. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara

Recalling his own liver transplantation at the NHSL last year, Baratha says, “I was almost dead when admitted to the National Hospital (Ward 28) on December 5.”

It was the surgical team headed by Prof. Mandika Wijeyaratne, Professor of Surgery at the Colombo Medical Faculty and including Vascular and Transplant Surgeons Dr. Nalaka Gunawansa and Dr. Rezni Cassim who performed it with a liver from a person declared brain-dead.

Baratha was the second person in Sri Lanka to get a cadaveric liver transplant, while the same team had carried out the trailblazing first in July last year. These were followed by a team from the Kelaniya Medical Faculty headed by Transplant Surgeons Dr. Ruwan Wijesuriya and Dr. Rohan Siriwardane performing Sri Lanka’s first-ever living donor liver transplantation from mother to daughter on October 15, this year at the Nawaloka Hospital.

Suffering from liver failure, Baratha had no option in the early days but to seek a transplant in India. Even though he was assured that the top liver transplant surgeon over there would do the needful, the cost was beyond him and his family. “We had to take the donor as well from Sri Lanka,” explains Baratha.
Back home, Baratha was in the depths of despair. His body including his stomach and feet would swell up. He was also not in his proper senses. Ever grateful to his Consultant Physician Chinthaka de Silva from the Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital “who carried me through to the time of the transplant”, Baratha relives the agony of those days. “Twice a week, they would puncture my tummy to remove the excess water and I would be normal. But that was short-lived and in three days the water would build up again because the liver was malfunctioning,” he explains.

It was then that he heard of Prof. Wijeyaratne from his brother who had been a classmate of Baratha at Royal College. He went to him but had to await a liver. Baratha was at death’s door when he was taken to hospital. Having collapsed at home, he was unconscious when rushed to the NHSL. It was at this time that sadly a young airman met with an accident and was declared brain dead and his relatives in the true spirit of daana donated his liver.

The transplant was performed on December 7, last year, and Baratha was home at Kohuwela by the 29th in time to celebrate not only the New Year as 2011 dawned but also a new lease of life with his wife, Lali, and two daughters, Imanthi who is studying for a Diploma in Psychiatry at the university, and Chathuranthi an Advanced Level student.

A Manager at Keells Hotel Management Services Ltd., he was back at work by March 1, fully appreciative of the immense support that the company gave him throughout his illness. Getting back to his routine with a new liver, there were a lot of restrictions at the beginning, he says, explaining that in the early days he was banned from going to public places as there was a risk of catching an infection and also eating raw vegetables and fruits.

No more and one year after even the immuno-suppressants (given to prevent his body from rejecting the “foreign” liver) have been petered down. Commending the Transplant Surgeons, headed by Prof. Wijeyaratne for being accessible to him all the time, night or day, even when they are on holiday, Baratha says that if he doesn’t touch base with them once-a-month as he should, they would call him up. “We are like friends,” is his explanation.

Now Baratha looks at life from a different angle. “I appreciate what other people do,” he says, working actively as Secretary to his batch of ’76 Group of Royal College who also supported him immensely.
“Many people who have liver disease don’t know where to go for help. I have already put about seven of them in touch with Prof. Wijeyaratne’s team,” he says.

Having escaped from the grip of death, Baratha is now channelling his energies to pulling back others by directing them to the right place. He is also on a mission to promote the donation of organs such as livers and kidneys for transplantation.