Teen Lives For Four Months Without a Heart
South Carolina - A South Carolina teen lived for nearly four months without a beating heart in her chest. She was kept alive by an artificial blood-pumping device until she could have a heart transplant. Doctors believe this is the longest that a child has been kept alive in this way.
The teen, D’Zhana Simmons, said the experience of having her blood supplied by a machine was scary because she never knew when it would malfunction. She said she felt like a fake person.
Simmons suffered from a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy, which weakens and enlarges the heart, making its pumping of blood inefficient. She already had a heart transplant in July, but the transplanted organ failed to function properly and needed to be removed. Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp. Were implanted to function as a real heart would until she could recover. That was how she lived for 118 days until she received her new heart.
In addition to her heart difficulties, she suffered renal failure and needed a kidney transplant after the second heart was transplanted.
Doctors say that Simmons’s prognosis is good, but she has a 50 percent chance of needing a new heart in 12 years.
