Peter Jackson: Rhys Thomas finds a new life pumping through him
More than 30 months after suffering a near fatal heart attack in training with the Scarlets and undergoing a quadruple bypass, Thomas survived an operation which took more than twice as long as normal. Only now has he been told that the surgical team almost aborted their attempt.
“The odds for a successful operation weren’t great,” he said, speaking after his 13-hour trauma for the first time.
“A lot of things could have gone wrong and they very nearly did. There were a lot of complications, a lot of scar tissue from my previous heart surgery.
“The surgeons were going to abandon the op after five hours because they couldn’t get through the scar tissue to put the machine into my heart. They would have stitched me up, put my sternum back in place and that would have left me with whatever time I had left.
“Thankfully, they kept going. They made a break through although I’ve only been made aware of that in the last couple of days. My wife Paula has kept a diary of the whole thing and without that I wouldn’t have known much about it.
“Until then I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I woke up one day in a lot of pain but very glad to know I was still around. I’d slept for two weeks after the op.
‘When I came to, I couldn’t remember anything because of the effects of so many drugs. I was hallucinating which made it a pretty bleak time. I’m just so relieved to have come through it.
“I was in hospital for three weeks before the surgery. I had my operation on Tuesday the second of September and I was released from hospital on the second of October. I was out of it for the whole time I was in there except for the last week.
“Normally, they bring you round within 12 or 24 hours after the op but I just wasn’t playing ball. When they tried to wake me up, apparently I was trying to pull all the wires out of my body. So they kept me asleep as much for my own safety as anything.”
The electrical pump now operating Thomas’ heart – a Vertricular Assist Device or VAD – is at the forefront of cardio-technology. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute describe it as
“a mechanical pump that takes blood from the lower chamber of the heart and helps pump it to the body and vital organs, just as a healthy heart would.
“It has a power source that connects to a control unit. This unit monitors the VAD’s function. It gives warnings and alarms if the power is low or the device isn’t working well.
“It has a power source outside the body. A cable connects the pump to the power source through a small hole in the abdomen. Implantable VAD’s are used mainly for people who are waiting for a heart trasnsplant or as a long-term solution for people who cannot have heart transplants.”
Thomas either plugs himself into the mains or uses two small batteries while walking around. “Inevitably, I will need a heart transplant at some stage but the longer I can get by using the pump, the better,” he said. “The average life for people who have had transplants is between 15 and 20 years.
“Technology in heart surgery is moving so fast that the longer I have the pump, the greater the chance of another major break through and the longer I’ll be able to be around.”
Before Thomas came round, surgeons had to perform a tracheostomy. “They had to go in via the windpipe to eliminate any risk of infection,” he said.
“That was why I couldn’t speak when I woke up which was hard to deal with because I didn’t understand why.
“I couldn’t write. I couldn’t hold a pen because my hand was shaking so much.
“I had to have a lot of physio. My legs were not operating because I’d been asleep for so long.
“I’d lost so much muscle which made me very unstable on my feet.
“I’m walking now and trying to get back to normal. I’m fairly limited exercise-wise but what matters is that the pump takes the strain off my heart and gives me extra time, time that I wouldn’t otherwise have had.
“The nurses and doctors at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham were incredible. I could not have been better looked after and I thank them all for their wonderful care. It’s impossible to criticise the NHS. If you are seriously ill, they ensure you are taken care of brilliantly.”
A family man with two children (Morgan 8 and Kai 7) and two step-children (Ashleigh 18 and Ethan 15), Thomas’ life-and-death experience makes the news agenda of the past week, as set by Kevin Pietersen and Roy Keane, trivial by comparison.
“It makes me laugh,” he says of their tales of dressing-room disharmony. “I’m just glad to be around.”
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on October 12
