Tackling Thrombosis with Technology and Tenacity
Conquering the
lood clots as big as carrots, roots and all, nearly killed Ted Exley and Michael Fischbach. Exley’s saga started with a terrible fall in an icy parking lot. He spent a week in the ICU with skull fractures and bleeding in his brain, but was eventually transferred to a rehabilitation center. He was doing well, all considered — until the night he suddenly had trouble breathing. “Massive clots were found in Dad’s lungs — so large, the physicians were surprised he was still alive. We were told he’d have the best chance of survival at Temple,” Exley’s daughter Ellyn recalls. By the time he got there — transferred from another tertiary care center in the region — he was in heart and respiratory failure. Parth Rali, MD, Assistant Professor of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery, remembers “looking at a 100 percent chance of mortality for Mr. Exley if the clots were not removed right away. The problem was, we couldn’t use clot-busting drugs because they could increase bleeding in his brain. And he wasn’t strong enough for open surgery.”
B
By GISELLE ZAYON
Photo illustrations by MMJ STUDIO
12
| TEMPLE HEALTH MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021
