Having nothing else to do, I resorted to reading on the net and almost immediately my attention was drawn to the story of a girl who lived without a heart for four months.
Can we live without a heart? When God created us he gave us a pump that pumps blood and keeps the circulation going. If calculated over an average life span of 70 years with normal 72 heartbeats / minute, the output of the average human heart over a life time would be about 1 million litres. It works, all the times. When it stops, we hear the chimes of the time clock... you know what I mean.
Believe it or not, a 14-year old American girl was kept alive for 118 days (almost 4 months) without a heart while waiting for a second heart transplant. She was fitted with a custom-made artificial heart after removing the first transplanted heart in July this year.
As per Reuter's, D'Zhana Simmons, who lives in South Carolina, had her first heart transplant on 2nd July at Holtz Children's Hospital at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Centre. But the new heart did not function correctly and was removed two days later, which is when she was implanted with an artificial heart made of two heart pumps to keep her alive until a second donor heart could be found. A statement from the hospital said they believe D'Zhana is the first child to survive without a heart in this way, with an artificial device keeping the circulation going.
She was barely able to walk around without assistance during those four months, told reporters that she found the experience "scary" and that she never knew when the artificial heart would malfunction. She said felt like a "fake person", living without a heart. Her mother told her "God has a special heart for you and he will deliver it to you when he is ready." May be, this is what gave her the strength to go on.
Living with an artificial heart was not without risk. For the best part of four months D'Zhana's body was very weak and struggled to fight off infection. In fact she suffered kidney failure and the day after she received a second heart on 29th October, she also received a new kidney on the 30th.
The heart pumps, known as ventricular assist devices, are normally used when the patient's heart is still in the body, to help it pump blood more efficiently while waiting for a new heart. But in D'Zhana's case the first donor heart was in danger of rupturing and had to be removed.
This young girl has, with the help of medical science, overcome an obstacle that until now would have meant almost certain death. She's fortunate to have been born into a country and situation where this was possible. I can't even imagine the perseverance required, on her part and that of everyone around her. This is a story of hope. May her life continue through a much easier path.
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