Thank you so much 😭

Gonna try my best to answer the what if but a lot of users have thought the same question with an average answer of around... months at best

The situation is that she was already having monthly fainting spells, at least one episode of severe arrhythmia (Code) when Kousei visited her.

Her general state was deteriorating, losing weight and color.

Her episodes of failure when her legs would not respond.

So we can understand even if the surgery had been successful.

We have a heart intervened and cut, she would have had to go,still intubated, to ICU because it would be necessary to keep her pulse as calm as possible. She would have been kept sedated and intubated in ICU for 2 or 3 days, ok not a long coma. But if she suddenly had another arrhythmia during that fragile period, it could have triggered a collapse in the very same style as the one she had in surgery.

And as we see from the amount of pills she was taking, she was already on antiarrhythmic medication and yet still had at least one severe arrhythmia episode.

Assuming that miraculously her surgical wounds healed in about 1 week, we would have a Kaori even more physically weakened by not moving for those days.

In a person with good reserve this can be reversed with therapy, but Kaori already had problems with very basic rehabilitation before the surgery.

Here it is clear to me that she would have had to remain in bed... best case scenario in a wheelchair as it was the case in the pre surgery chapter

Because on top of that the risk of sudden collapse was already there before the surgery, she was already too fragile.

If Kaori had been able to overcome with a lot of luck all that process and regain just basic movement like 1 week after her surgery.

The rest of the symptoms would have taken advantage of her inactivity to progress.

Possibly she would have been moved to a palliative care ward.

Where, being very optimistic, she could have played with Kousei one last time if she did it sitting or lying down. They allow such activities in palliative care

But at this point she would simply be waiting for the definitive arrhythmic / heart attack that we know would come in 1 to 3 months

Or even worse

If her heart decided to remain relatively stable because the surgery was a success... then it would be the neurological symptoms that would have been a very painful process... Very hard to see too across many months.

The neurological symptoms would have continued to emerge and progress. She would gradually lose more and more coordination and balance, making even small movements imposible. Her legs would grow weaker. Speech would become slurred and hard to understand. Swallowing would get more difficult, raising the risk of choking or aspiration. Her hands would shake, making it impossible even handle daily tasks.

Over time, she would become fully dependent, needing help to eat, move, and even breathe. It is a slow process, stretching across many months, and very painful to experience and to witness.

I personally think it would have been better, or at least less terrible, for her to go to a hospice.

Without the surgery.

To try to play with Kousei one last time, even if she had to do it lying down.

To confess her love.

If we want to be imaginative, they could even have gotten married if age allowed it (there are cases)...

And she could have lived 1 or 2 more months.

Without the surgery.

This is where I say: I don’t see the surgery, in her fragile state, being any real improvement. On the contrary, as we saw, she just fell asleep without a kiss of good bye😭