Miracles at Christmas: Rupika’s story
When 38-year-old mother of two Rupika Chopra came to The Alfred’s emergency department in August with a sore neck, she could never have predicted the eight weeks to follow.
What started as an innocuous pain quickly became a life-threatening and highly complex cardiac condition for the Melbourne woman, who over the coming weeks would go into cardiac arrest seven times and be placed on life support.
Both Rupika and her husband Yogesh say it was their faith – both in a higher god and in modern medicine – that kept the mother of two alive.
“Yogesh said to the specialists, you do your job and fix her and I’ll do mine and keep praying,” Rupika said.
With the use of specialist cardiac MRI at The Alfred, the largest cardiac MRI centre in Australia, cardiologists were quickly able to diagnose Rupika with eosinophilic myocarditis, a rare and potentially fatal inflammatory heart disease, where severe clotting means the heart is unable to function properly.
While in ICU, Rupika required the support of ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation), a device that keeps the sickest of patients alive, and the care of specialists spanning seven major departments including haematology, rheumatology and hepatology.
At her most critical moments, Rupika’s heart became so weak the team listed her for an urgent heart transplant, before agreeing that her immune response meant that a transplant would likely be unsuccessful.
Alfred cardiologist Professor Andrew Taylor said it was rare to see a patient as unwell as Rupika was, go on to survive.
“She experienced a range of very serious complications from the initial cardiac condition, including a lacerated liver, kidney failure, severe arrythmia and internal bleeding,” Prof Taylor said.
“This was more than just a cardiac team working together – this was a whole of hospital response to an incredibly sick patient.
“There’s no question that if we didn’t have onsite access to such high level specialties it would have been a completely different story. I really believe Rupika wouldn’t have survived.”
During that time, Rupika and Yogesh never lost faith that she would recover.
“One of the doctors said to us ‘I think you’re overconfident’ and Rupika replied ‘I’m not overconfident – I just believe’,” Yogesh said.
“Over those eight weeks, everyone who knew us joined their hands together in front of whoever they had faith in and prayed for us.”
Two weeks after being taken off life support, Rupika was beginning a physical rehabilitation program at Alfred Health’s Caulfield Hospital.
Now she’s back at home, reunited with the two children she’s barely seen for two months, and preparing to celebrate Christmas with her community of believers, from all walks of life.
“I’m just so happy to be home,” Rupika said.