A heart transplant story in a 1-year-old, as told by his mother

"In January of 1991, at twenty-two months old, Nick had another heart catheterization. Andy and I had started thinking about the next stage of surgery to finish the heart repair. Just before Nick was discharged, I discussed it briefly with Dr. Kanter.

'Tell me when you would like to do the surgery,' he said.

'Never, if it’s up to me.'

We were in no hurry for Nick to go into the OR again. The older Nick grew, the more difficult it became to agree to procedures. At least this operation would be one of the planned surgeries. By now, heart surgeons were doing an additional repair, completing the surgery in two stages instead of one. The positive side was that at least we would be taking a step forward.

Andy and I wanted the surgery date to be sooner rather than later, but we still had questions. I asked Dr. Kanter to call me. He and I discussed the pros and cons of the repair.

There was a pause in the conversation, and then Dr. Kanter asked, 'Susan, are you sitting down?'"

Susan May is a writer and author of Nick’s New Heart: 30 Years and Counting.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "The story of a heart transplant in a 1-year-old, as told by his mother." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/05/the-story-of-a-heart-transplant-in-a-1-year-old-as-told-by-his-mother.html)