“How is mom?” was the first thing 22-year-old Diep Huu Loc asked his father when he regained consciousness after a major operation to transplant his liver into his mother’s body, the first of its kind performed on adults in Vietnam.

His face was beaming with pride for helping prolong his mother’s life.

After 13 hours of surgery, Vietnam’s first adult liver transplant ended in success at Ho Chi Minh City’s Cho Ray Hospital on October 12. The recipient was 53-year-old Cung Thi Kim Dinh from the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong, who had suffered from liver failure since 2010, and the donor was Loc, her youngest son, who is a senior in information technology at the HCMC Foreign Language and Informatics University.

Loc’s father, Diep Bao Ha, 53, was hugely relieved to learn that the most critical, dangerous phase of his wife and son’s ordeal was finally over.

According to Cho Ray hospital, at 6:30 pm on Oct 13, the tube from Loc’s stomach was removed, while his mother recovered and her liver began to function, though she was still on a respiratory machine.

Dinh needs further care for around two weeks, while her son will continue to be closely monitored in the isolation room for 7-10 days and will be discharged in around a month.

After 6-8 weeks, Loc will have a regenerated liver that will be 60-80 percent of his original liver, according to Cho Ray doctors.

Generally speaking, a liver donation won’t affect the donor’s health afterwards; yet there exists the chance of complications due to inflammation, they noted.

Acting on their wish, a door was opened between the mother’s and her son’s rooms so that they could see each other recuperating.

One interesting thing is that the recipient has three spleens, including two subsidiary ones, while a normal person has only one. Doctors from Cho Ray hospital said that this is a rare condition, with the ratio being 1/100,000.

A dedicated son

According to Loc’s father, he is a quiet, introverted, independent young man.

Diep Huu Loc's (1st, right) 4-member family. 

Right before Loc was taken into the isolation room to get ready for the operation, Diep Thi Phuong Ngoc, Loc’s older sister, asked him in a whisper if he was afraid of being in great pain.

Loc nodded but said: “Don’t worry, sis. My love for mom will get me through this ordeal.”

Ngoc commented that Loc, though still young, is indeed the family’s second man who always takes good care of his mother and sister.

According to Ngoc, her mother, Dinh, suffered months of torment before finally reaching the decision to undergo this momentous operation and receive the liver from her son.

“I haven’t given you two anything. Also, I don’t know how many more years I can live, so I really don’t have the heart to take away a part of your body,” Dinh sadly said to her son.

Despite several consultations with her doctor and much encouragement and consensus from her family, Dinh once came to see her doctor on her own to say she wouldn’t go through with the operation.

Dinh was diagnosed with liver disease 13 years ago. Her illness degenerated and she had to be hospitalized several times as Loc began his first year at university.

Concerned that his mother was too frail to wait for her turn for checkups, whenever he learned that she was coming to HCMC Loc would go to Cho Ray hospital at 4:00 in the morning to get the early order number so that his mother wouldn’t have to wait.

Duc Nhac, one of Loc’s university classmates, recalled that Loc often confided to him about his family, particularly his mother’s illness, and he had also told some of his classmates about the operation prior to hospitalization.

“After much careful consideration, I have no reason to procrastinate,” Nhac quoted Loc as saying.

“Faced with life and death, one has to try the last option. If not, they’ll feel full of remorse later on, and can’t undo it,” Loc calmly told his friends.

“I think everyone in Loc’s shoes is supposed to act like him. It’s a child’s filial duty towards his/her parents,” said Loc’s class monitor, Nguyen Thanh Luan.

“However, not a few people nowadays behave improperly or harshly towards their aging parents, or even maltreat them.”

“So Loc’s act is truly admirable and praiseworthy. This good deed comes from his passionate love for his mother, his willingness to share agony with her and his dogged determination to save her life,” Luan commented.

Nguyen Ngoc Bao, Loc’s form teacher during his three high school years, said that Loc is the emotional type.

“Judging by the way he takes care of his seriously ill mother, we all know that he’s a very devoted son,” Bao added.

Meanwhile, Truong Cong Thi, a neighbor of Loc’s family, noted that Loc’s personality has been shaped by his exemplary parents.

Loc’s father is an official of the Dak Mil commune’s Bureau of Education and his wife is principal of a kindergarten school. They have set a shining example for their two children with their respectable lifestyles.

“So I think it’s no surprise that Loc decided to donate his liver to his mother,” Thi added.

According to Nguyen Thi Nhung, a local seamstress who has known Loc’s family for years, Loc is a modest, plain, loving young man.

“When he was back home from school, he always helped his mother with household chores and often took her out for a change,” Nhung observed.

The first of its kind in Vietnam This is the first time Vietnamese doctors have conducted a liver transplant surgery on adults. They did most of the work, while also receiving assistance from their South Korean counterparts from ASAN Medical Center.

The first adult liver transplant operation conducted by local surgeons was carried out at Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on October 12. Photo: Tuoi Tre.

According to Vietnamnet newswire, Vietnamese doctors have so far conducted 17 liver transplant operations on children.

After this first transplant, which was performed thanks to a healthy donor, a liver transplant operation involving a brain-dead donor is to be conducted, Cho Ray doctors said.

Liver transplantation helps save the lives of many patients with serious liver diseases, even cancer, they added.

The cost of each transplant operation is more than VND1 billion (US$48,000), which will be funded by the Health Ministry and Cho Ray Hospital.

This cost in Singapore and other countries is 2-4 times higher.

“Liver transplantation on adults is not so technically challenging, but the major difficulties include the exorbitant cost and a serious shortage of liver donation,” Dan Tri quoted Dr. Nguyen Tien Quyet, director of Viet Duc hospital, which has performed several liver transplants on children, as saying.

In addition, within the first 30 days after the operation, patients have to take drugs which cost up to $US 40,000 in total, Quyet added.

Patients will also have to pay $US 7,000-8,000 each year for the next few years.

Quyet added that in the world approximately 60% of adult liver recipients have their life prolonged by more than five years after the operation, with some even living up to another 20 years.