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Subscribe to RSSInfant makes major strides after heart transplant. WTVJ's Diana Gonzalez reports.
Just five weeks after her heart transplant, Kylee Faith Jones is recovering exceptionally well.
It's especially remarkable considering Kylee is just five months old, born with a congenital heart defect that required a pacemaker when she was three days old, according to NBC's Miami affiliate, WTVJ.
She’s also the youngest transplant patient ever at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, in Hollywood, Fla. In fact, little Kylee is only the third case at the hospital, which started its pediatric heart transplant program in December 2010.
Over 2,000 patients received heart transplantations in 2010, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. About 88 percent of patients survive the first year, and about 72 percent survive for five years, says the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
Infant transplantation, though, is much riskier. A recent study from Children’s Hospital Boston showed that 1 in 9 babies who undergo transplantation die before leaving the hospital.
But without a transplant, baby Kylee faced difficult odds. An ultrasound detected a heart defect when mother Trace Jones was 16 weeks pregnant.
“Her heart was flipped. It was on the right side of her body and it was a mirror image,” Jones told the station. “She had third degree heart block which meant the top of her heart and the bottom didn’t fire at the same times.”
Kylee did well on the pacemaker for three months, but then became very ill, and was unresponsive at the hospital's emergency room, . “When I picked her out of the baby seat, I realized her body was limp. It was a very scary feeling,” said John Jones, the baby's father.
Doctors resuscitated Kylee, who spent the next seven weeks in the pediatric intensive care unit waiting for a donor heart. Donor hearts are in short supply, with over 3,000 patients currently waiting, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
But Kylee got lucky, receiving a donor heart, and transplant surgery on August 31. She “required maximal medical support in order to sustain her until the time of transplant, “ Dr. Maryanne Chrisant, director of pediatric cardiac transplants at the hospital told WTVJ.
An ultrasound of Kylee's own malfunctioning heart showed it was contracting very poorly and the rhythm was abnormal. A recent ultrasound done after the transplant is a different story. “It’s pumping beautifully, it’s ejecting blood perfectly, it’s really doing great,” said Chrisant, monitoring Kylee’s progress.
That's the best possible news for the Jones, who feel forever indebted to the donor family.
“It was sort of a mixed feeling in the sense that you feel guilty for another family that lost their child in order to give our child life,“ said Kylee's father, John. “We would love to meet them and just thank them,” added a grateful Trace. And now, all family members have registered to be organ donors.
Interested in becoming an organ donor? Visit organdonor.gov to get more information.
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Wow! Her surgery was performed by a transplant program which is not open yet!
I am glad to hear that she is doing well, however.
It says December 2010.
Fixed. Thanks!
God is great!! May she live a long and healthy life!!
Dr. Chrisant was my son's dr when he was a baby and at UVA for an enlarged heart. She is a wonderful dr. Congratulations to the family. I am glad Kylee is doing so well.
Kylee Faith Jones was very lucky to get a Heart transplant. There are now over 112,000 people on the National Transplant Waiting List, with over 50% of these people dying before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate 20,000 transplantable organs every year.
There is another good way to put a big dent in the organ shortage – if you don’t agree to donate your organs when you die, then you go to the back of the waiting list if you ever need an organ to live.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. About 50% of the organs transplanted in the United States go to people who haven’t agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition. LifeSharers has over 14,700 members.
Please contact me – Dave Undis, Executive Director of LifeSharers – if your readers would like to learn more about our innovative approach to increasing the number of organ donors. I can arrange interviews with some of our local members if you’re interested. My email address is daveundis@lifesharers.org. My phone number is 615-351-8622.
You mean science is great. God gave her a faulty heart.
Couldn't care less. PHBBBBTT. Booorrring!
Boring indeed; dude not everyone lives in their own little world. That's what is wrong with the world now. No one gives a darn about anyone but themselves. I think it's a miricle and am glad this little child got the oppertunity to live. No parent wants to burry their child and I know they are elated. I for one like to wake up to something besides serial killings and mass murder in the morning. A little good news is the sunshine in my life. I'd much rather start my day out with good news than bad. Go back and such a lemon dude no one cares what you think.
to a2ggg2, if science is so great, then who gave the ability to the skilled surgeons who performed the transplant, it was non other the God, the one who created us all. Christians are not protected from bad things happening to them, but are able to accept and cope with such things because of their Faith.