Macey Wright‘s heart transplant announcement was caught on camera by her mother, Patrice Wright, who shared the emotional moment with the world.
At the age of 14, Macey Wright, of Salt Lake City, Utah has been through unspeakable pain and agony. Macey was born with a congenital heart defect (CHD), also known as a congenital heart anomaly or congenital heart disease.
According to experts, congenital heart defect is a problem in the structure of the heart that is present at birth. In many cases, the birth defect goes undetected throughout life. The signs and symptoms vary from none to life-threatening to serious health problems.
Many of the 34.3 million people in the world with congenital heart anomaly have to cope with rapid breathing, bluish skin, poor weight gain, and feeling tired. However, with the appropriate treatment, they can live normal lives. Moreover, a small portion of those with CHD needs operations. Occasionally heart transplantation is required. Macey is in this category.
She has been through three open-heart procedures including one three years ago, but those were not enough. This year, Wright was hit with a major setback when her doctors discovered that her heart had weakened.
The physicians decided that the girl urgently needed a heart transplant. The teen was put on a waiting list to receive a heart transplant, due to her showing symptoms of heart failure, she was moved up.
Late last month, Patrice Wright received the phone call that the family had been praying for – her little girl had been given a new heart. Patrice decided to record the teen as she explained to her that the heart transplant had been scheduled.
Macey Wright got emotional, broke down in tears, and jumped around as her mother asked her to pack her bags to go to the hospital. The mother said:
“I wanted everybody else to see how amazing that call was for our friends and family. She’s a pretty tender, sweet-hearted girl. I did think she’d cry tears of joy, but I didn’t think she’d be that elated.”
Mrs. Wright added that she got the call on August 29 when the doctors said there was a strong chance that Macey had received a heart and that they needed to get to the hospital immediately. She went on to say:
“She had high pressures in her lungs and they need to be low enough to receive a transplant. If [a heart] didn’t come soon, she would have to have a heart and lung transplant. There was a great urgency when the call came.”
The Wright family rushed to the Intermountain Primary Children’s Medical Center or Primary Children’s Hospital, a children’s hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it was confirmed that the little girl would get a new heart.
The teenager underwent a heart transplant later that day and has been making a slow but progressive recovery since. Mrs. Wright stated:
“She’s very brave. Macey has been faced with many difficult emotions besides feeling sick on top of that. She’s had to realize what that means to get a donor organ. That makes her sad for the [donor’s] family. She struggles with that, [but] she’s so grateful that somebody gave her this gift.”
The family shared an update via Facebook, which read:
“Macey lifted up her shirt and I saw just how many bandages this girl has. Wow! They took out the pace wires that were in her chest today and her picc line that was in her arm. The picc line was delivering life saving medicine directly to her heart while we were waiting for a transplant. Macey is happy to have her arm free again if you can’t tell by the picture. Macey has felt upto doing some glitter art. I got a little teary eyed when she showed me what she made. The biopsy went really well and she recovered quickly. We don’t know results yet but I feel good about it. I think we are going to get the okay to head home! We have a long year ahead of us but we can do it!”
They have also created a Go Fund Me page for the little warrior to pay for her medical bills. It reads:
“My name is Julianne and I started this campaign to raise money for my beautiful, strong, loving niece- Macey Wright. Macey was born with a heart condition- severe aortic stenosis and mitral stenosis. She immediately had surgery as an infant and has since lived a relatively normal, healthy life up until two years ago. At age 11 she had open heart surgery- not once but TWICE. The second being a complication from the first. Within just a few weeks of the first surgery she was in severe heart failure and her organs were shutting down. Macey spent 9 days in the ICU and had the surgery for a second time to fix her mitral valve.”
The video has touched many people online.
