AURORA, Colo. — A 2-year-old has been released from a children’s hospital after receiving a heart transplant and nearly a year after viewers helped the family through Denver7 Gives.
When we meet the Griego family in 2023, their car has been stolen near a hospital. Viewers helped him raise $8,000 to help the family with living expenses.
“Every day was a struggle, worrying,” his mother, Debra Griego, told Denver7.
Her daughter Crystal was born with a ventricular septal defect (VSD), a hole in the heart.
She spent a year waiting for a donor heart at a children’s hospital, undergoing surgeries, tube treatments and close calls.
Dr. Melanie Everitt, medical director of heart transplantation, said: “It was critical that we get a heart that would fit her body as quickly as possible, but that took more than a year and her disease worsened. “It was,” he said.
Children’s Hospital is a large heart transplant center and performs 15 to 20 pediatric heart transplants per year, which is considered high for a pediatric center.
On January 6, Dr. Everitt called Debra to let her know that she had a donor.
“When I got that call, the first thing I could think was that someone was going to say goodbye to their child that day, so that was heavy on my mind,” Debra said. said.
The next day, Dr. Everett and her team performed a heart transplant on Crystal. Her recovery was even better than she expected.
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“The moment they took her off the bypass and her heart started working, her new heart, her gift, immediately started working perfectly for her,” Debra said.
Less than a month after her surgery, Crystal said goodbye to her family at Children’s Hospital and finally went home.
Crystal has a weakened immune system and will need to take medication for the rest of her life.
“Crystal’s greatest joy in the past was eating, because she couldn’t eat anything during the year she was in the hospital. Her heart was so bad that she wouldn’t accept any food,” Debra said. said.
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Debra is happy to have her two children home and hopes to return to New Mexico.
She wants to raise awareness about organ donation.
”We are so grateful that they made the decision to donate their lives during their most difficult days. Because if it wasn’t for their selfless decision, I wouldn’t have her here,” she said.
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