Translated material
Stimulant for Walesa
Solidarity's father will undergo heart surgery
Today, former Polish President 64-year-old Lech Walesa (pictured) may have a pacemaker implanted at the American Heart Center in Houston. This operation was scheduled for Wednesday, but during the examination, doctors discovered a blockage in one of the important vessels in the patient. It was decided to perform another operation - to expand the cardiac aorta. It was successfully performed in three hours under general anesthesia by Dr. Neil Kleiman, Chief of Operative Cardiology.If doctors consider that the operation did not cause complications, then today Walesa will have a pacemaker implanted. This is also a deviation from the treatment plan, since several months earlier doctors did not rule out a heart transplant. The patient was also ready for this. Now, if the outcome is successful, transplantation can be avoided.
Walesa's cardiovascular problems began a long time ago. His coronary arteries were dilated a year and a half ago in a Milan clinic. After that operation, Walesa, restless in his political activity and traveling extensively around the world, was observed at the Medical Academy of his native Gdansk, where it was planned to implant a heart stimulator. However, he decided to have surgery in Houston. The famous Methodist Heart Center in this American city was founded by Michael DeBakey - the same professor who in 1996 advised the Russian surgeon Renat Akchurin in Moscow, who operated on Boris Yeltsin.
Lech Walesa is calm about the upcoming operation. “I had an examination, and it turned out that my heart was a little loose, and it needed to be fixed,” he said, adding: “At my age, this is normal.” Walesa was more surprised by the reaction of people who learned from the newspapers that the legendary founder of the Solidarity movement may have to undergo an expensive heart transplant operation. On the eve of leaving for Houston for the operation, Lech Walesa told Vremya Novostey: “Imagine, a lot of people were ready to help me and organize a fundraiser. And two of them even guaranteed that they would pay any price for the operation, but they set a condition: to give them my old heart. But they didn’t say why they needed it.”