single ventricle then sent oxygen-rich blood gushing throughout his body.
That worked pretty well, Whitlow says. “I did all the normal things, including playing Little League baseball.” Then things changed.
• In 2005, 2,125 heart transplants were performed.
• 72.4 % of heart transplants are for males.
• In 2006, the one-year or longer survival rate for heart transplant patients was 86.1% for males and 83.9% for females.
• People who need new hearts often have to wait. The wait for a new heart can be as little as a few days, or as long as a year.
Source: American Heart Association, 2007
The Gift of Life
By the time Whitlow turned fourteen, his patched-up heart was pretty tired. It was too weak to keep his body strong. “I had trouble running and had to nap all the time,” he remembers.
Doctors recommended a heart transplant. That’s when a damaged body part gets replaced. “New” hearts come from people who agreed to donate their hearts to others before they died. “It’s a difficult thing when someone has to die in order for you to live,” says Whitlow. “But giving someone the gift of life is just plain wonderful.”
That gift took a while to arrive. Each year about 35,000 people in this country need heart transplants. There are only a small number of replacements available. So Whitlow waited a month, then another, then another.