He went to the doctor for a pain in his foot and was told he was four days old.

Riccardo Bernstein, a resident of Montvale, New Jersey, United States, went to the podiatrist five years ago worried about a mysterious pain in his right big toe. The discomfort did not subside and he thought he had broken his foot. But the pro saw nothing wrong and told him there was nothing to worry about.

Two years later, Bernstein, now 62, began to feel pain in his ankle, so he saw a sports doctor, who diagnosed him. stenosisa narrowing of the spaces within the spine that is sometimes treated with physical therapy.

But the pain in his foot and ankle did not decrease and began to slightly affect his mobility. Then, in March 2022, his right leg swelled noticeably. His family doctor did an abdominal ultrasound and after which he was immediately referred by Dr. Michael Grasso, Director of Urology at Phelps Hospital, who gave him some devastating news, says the The mail.

“He told me I was four days old,” Bernstein recalls today.

Abdominal ultrasound showed that the patient had a large kidney tumor and a tumor thrombus that had grown through the renal vein and filled the vena cava, which is the main vein that drains the heart. After that, they decided to operate, but the pre-surgical studies have given even more urgent and worrying data to be resolved.

Complex surgery

The doctor told him the sad news that in addition to a large cancerous tumor in the kidney, he had a tumor thrombus that had grown through the renal vein and had filled the vena cava, which is the main vein that drains the heart, according to the aforementioned medium. .

“I was walking a tightrope,” Grasso told The Post. “You have two situations that are life ending in a very short period of time, occurring simultaneously.”

Grasso, together with cardiothoracic surgeon Michael Hemli and vascular surgeon Alfio Carroccio, removed the tumor and performed a ring road. The procedure lasted nearly 12 hours and was a gentle surgical supplement.

Because they needed to “control the circulation” they had to cut off blood flow without harming the brain. For what Bernstein was hooked up to a heart-lung machine that cools the body to 18 degrees.

“We couldn’t just open the vena cava, remove the clot and close it again because the bleeding would have been surprising,” Hemli said. Traffic had to be stopped altogether.

While the body underwent the two-hour cooling process, Hemli and her team performed coronary artery bypass grafting. The trio of surgeons then proceeded to remove the kidney and tumor.

“We opened the vena cava and they opened the heart on the right side and freed the tumor. I freed him from below, took out the snake, fixed his vena cava and started heating him again, “said Grasso. The mail.

The “snake” – that is, the tumor and the tumor thrombus – to which he referred weighed more than a kilo.

Berstein says he was operated on not really knowing how complicated his condition was: “I can’t say I fully recognized the complexity when I entered, even though Grasso told me it was. There wasn’t much I could do about it, so he got me through it, “Bernstein said.

According to Grasso, the pain manifested itself in Bernstein’s foot, ankle and leg because there was a venous blockage. “The vena cava was blocked. There was pressure on her lower extremities,” Grasso said.

“If my whole leg hadn’t swelled, I would have died,” said Bernstein, who was sedated for about three days after surgery. After a week, he left Lenox Hill for rehab at Phelps Hospital. He is already walking unaided and is gradually regaining the 13 kilos lost after the double surgery.

Source: The Post