Witness the Gift of Life: April 11, 2018
Up until today, we have covered stories of past donors and recipients. Today, we felt compelled to share the story of Lucy, a 4 year old who found out that she will be getting her gift of life TODAY (April 11, 2018). Please follow along as we witness the benefits of organ donation. Lucy's story shows us what organ donation is all about!
Thinking of Lucy, her family and the donor's family today.
Follow Lucy's journey by clicking here
Let me catch you up...
(As explained from Lucy's YouCaring Page)
Lucy is a sassy 4 year old born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. After a rough start to life, with 4 surgeries in her first year, she excelled and was just like any other toddler, going to school, loving her little brother and playing at the park. In May of 2017, she had her final surgery of the 3 stage correction called the Fontan. Her recovery did not go as planned and she spent 100 days in the hospital recovering. She had a slew of setbacks that included a clot, dialysis, and two more trips to the operating room. In September, she was finally healthy enough to go home. However, over the last six months, Lucy's health started to deteriorate and she required multiple hospital stays to monitor.
In March of 2018, her doctor schedule a heart catherization to see if there was any surgical intervention that could help. The results were that Lucy was in early heart failure. Three days later the family decided to transfer to Lurie Children's hospital for a transplant evaluation. With her evaluation complete, she was listed for a heart transplant status 1A and would be required to remain in the hospital until her transplant. The average wait time is six to eight months.
"I Got My New Heart"
(Post from At the heart of Lucy Facebook Page)
"Today I received the best birthday gift from a family I haven’t even met. A selfless gift that will give us our life back. I can’t imagine what that family is going through but we will be forever grateful.
Yesterday at 2 pm, our cardiologist pulled us into a conference room. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I feared some bad news. Instead she said ‘we found a heart’. In that moment, I burst into tears.
This journey has delivered us blow after blow of bad news. But this....coming many months before we expected is just the lift we needed.
To our donor family, I hope one day we get to meet you so I can hug you. So you can meet Lucy and see what your choice gave to us! We will forever love you!
Today (at some point) Lucy will go to the operating room to get her beautiful heart.
Please send up a prayer for the precious family that made a most difficult decision in their darkest hour.
Please say a pray for Lucy and her team that everything goes smoothly.
*at this point we have no other details then she will go to the operating room at some point today. We will update as we have details"
Click here for the video of Lucy sharing her news. Warning: though short, this video made me cry.
Lucy's YouCaring page can be accessed by clicking here