Race to Live: Girl, 15, Gets New Heart in Month's Time
Note: This was another one of those assignments passed out in the newsroom by a hopeful editor. Fortunately, I was given a name and a number early enough to pull the story together. This ended up running on the front page ... but took a full day of phone calls to reach this girl and her mom, to coordinate with the hospital watching over her and to secure rights for our photographer to take a picture in the room. Whew.
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Aug. 2, 2003
Jayleen Plant had a broken heart.
Now, she has a new one.
After a few whirlwind weeks that saw her careening incredulously toward death, the 15-year-old Martinez girl was spared by a heart transplant.
Only a few months ago, those closest to Jayleen had attributed her fading health to anxiety after the death of her grandmother.
No one had imagined a young heart failing so badly, a national waiting list for a new one, a ghastly surgery _ and a reconfigured life.
It all unfolded so fast.
"It's hard for me to say that my daughter has had a heart transplant. It's crazy," said Daycia Hall, a single mother of five.
Jayleen, a sophomore at Concord High School, is recovering at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University, where she underwent surgery July 25.
The procedure lasted about six hours. It left a thin, puffy scar that runs from the girl's neck to her belly.
"When I first saw her, when her eyes opened, she gave me the thumbs-up," said Hall, 42. "It was very overwhelming. I could have crumbled."
The transplant has steered Jayleen and her family into a new life shaped by a rigorous series of medical routines. She receives constant monitoring, and 16 pills a day to fight off rejection and prevent infections.
About 85 percent of transplant recipients survive their first year, a figure that slips to 77 percent after three years.
Nationally, 3,687 people are waiting for new hearts, according to United Network Organ Sharing, a nonprofit group that manages transplant waiting lists for the federal government.
More than 500 hopefuls are waiting in California. Many of them will die doing so.
Jayleen was lucky. She waited only 16 days, receiving a donor organ from a Las Vegas woman in her 20s.
"The list goes by medical need. For her to be moved, she was sicker than anyone else," said Mary Wallace, public affairs manager for the California Transplant Donor Network in Oakland.
At the time, Jayleen, tethered to a respirator, had perilously low blood pressure and "looked real, real bad," Hall said. "They said she had about two hours left."
She was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart cavity enlarges and stretches, making it weak and unable to pump normally.
No one has any idea what brought it on. A bug bite? A lap in a dirty swimming pool? An infection from a recent tongue-ring procedure? Jayleen may never know.
In any case, things started slowly unraveling in March, when Jayleen's 65-year-old grandmother, Marlene, died of emphysema.
"Jayleen didn't cry. I thought that maybe she was going through some kind of anxiety," her mother said. "She said it was hard to breathe, which is how I get when I get anxious."
The teenager, always on-the-go and outgoing, suddenly lost interest and energy.
She went to the mall once with a group of friends who were picking out their graduation outfits. Jayleen just sat on a bench.
In June, a visit to John Muir Medical Center set into motion a frenzy of appointments and tests to figure out what was wrong. An EKG test June 17 revealed Jayleen's enlarged heart.
Two days later, she was rushed to Children's Hospital Oakland in an ambulance, where she underwent four weeks of close scrutiny and blood analysis.
In July, a concerned cardiologist had her transferred to Stanford. She would be on a waiting list for an organ that would save her life.
It's been a jittery ride for family members and Hall's coworkers at Costco in Concord. Many of them pitched in their vacation time to allow a worried mom seven weeks off to care for her daughter.
In a recent hospital visit, Jayleen squeezed her mother's hand. She said, "Mom, take me home."
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Aug. 2, 2003
Jayleen Plant had a broken heart.
Now, she has a new one.
After a few whirlwind weeks that saw her careening incredulously toward death, the 15-year-old Martinez girl was spared by a heart transplant.
Only a few months ago, those closest to Jayleen had attributed her fading health to anxiety after the death of her grandmother.
No one had imagined a young heart failing so badly, a national waiting list for a new one, a ghastly surgery _ and a reconfigured life.
It all unfolded so fast.
"It's hard for me to say that my daughter has had a heart transplant. It's crazy," said Daycia Hall, a single mother of five.
Jayleen, a sophomore at Concord High School, is recovering at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University, where she underwent surgery July 25.
The procedure lasted about six hours. It left a thin, puffy scar that runs from the girl's neck to her belly.
"When I first saw her, when her eyes opened, she gave me the thumbs-up," said Hall, 42. "It was very overwhelming. I could have crumbled."
The transplant has steered Jayleen and her family into a new life shaped by a rigorous series of medical routines. She receives constant monitoring, and 16 pills a day to fight off rejection and prevent infections.
About 85 percent of transplant recipients survive their first year, a figure that slips to 77 percent after three years.
Nationally, 3,687 people are waiting for new hearts, according to United Network Organ Sharing, a nonprofit group that manages transplant waiting lists for the federal government.
More than 500 hopefuls are waiting in California. Many of them will die doing so.
Jayleen was lucky. She waited only 16 days, receiving a donor organ from a Las Vegas woman in her 20s.
"The list goes by medical need. For her to be moved, she was sicker than anyone else," said Mary Wallace, public affairs manager for the California Transplant Donor Network in Oakland.
At the time, Jayleen, tethered to a respirator, had perilously low blood pressure and "looked real, real bad," Hall said. "They said she had about two hours left."
She was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart cavity enlarges and stretches, making it weak and unable to pump normally.
No one has any idea what brought it on. A bug bite? A lap in a dirty swimming pool? An infection from a recent tongue-ring procedure? Jayleen may never know.
In any case, things started slowly unraveling in March, when Jayleen's 65-year-old grandmother, Marlene, died of emphysema.
"Jayleen didn't cry. I thought that maybe she was going through some kind of anxiety," her mother said. "She said it was hard to breathe, which is how I get when I get anxious."
The teenager, always on-the-go and outgoing, suddenly lost interest and energy.
She went to the mall once with a group of friends who were picking out their graduation outfits. Jayleen just sat on a bench.
In June, a visit to John Muir Medical Center set into motion a frenzy of appointments and tests to figure out what was wrong. An EKG test June 17 revealed Jayleen's enlarged heart.
Two days later, she was rushed to Children's Hospital Oakland in an ambulance, where she underwent four weeks of close scrutiny and blood analysis.
In July, a concerned cardiologist had her transferred to Stanford. She would be on a waiting list for an organ that would save her life.
It's been a jittery ride for family members and Hall's coworkers at Costco in Concord. Many of them pitched in their vacation time to allow a worried mom seven weeks off to care for her daughter.
In a recent hospital visit, Jayleen squeezed her mother's hand. She said, "Mom, take me home."
posted by Corey at 8:24 PM
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