FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — When children experience heart failure, they often need a transplant to replace their defected organ, but waiting can take time. Now, there’s a new device that helps the heart do its job — without stopping a kid from being a kid.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t look like much, but a day out like this is big for 11-year-old Jacque Fair.<\/p>\n
Last summer, Jacque and her mom found out she had heart failure and needed a transplant.<\/p>\n
“It was a surprise,” Jacque told ABC30.<\/p>\n
“I had to step out of the room to be honest with you. It was a little much to take,” Katrina Fair, Jacque’s mom, told ABC30.<\/p>\n
While she waits for a transplant, Jacque wears the HeartWare device.<\/p>\n
“They used to be bigger, bulkier, so only adults could receive them,” Mary Mehegan, RN, VAD Coordinator, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, told ABC30.<\/p>\n
The pump is implanted in the heart and attaches to a battery pack outside the body. It takes blood out of the left ventricle and pumps it into the aorta — helping the heart function when it’s too weak to do so on its own.<\/p>\n
The device is small enough to be used in kids and it is portable — so patients don’t have to stay in the hospital.<\/p>\n
“It’s a beautiful thing to let a child go home while they’re still in heart failure,” Mehegan said.<\/p>\n
Jacque says the device has given her freedom.<\/p>\n
“If I didn’t have this, I’d probably be in the hospital, not allowed to do anything and taped up to the wall,” Jacque said.<\/p>\n
She’s looking forward to her transplant, but says she’s happy she can still be a kid while she waits.<\/p>\n
Patients have to be at least 65 pounds to receive the device. The HeartWare is a left ventricular assist device, commonly called an LVAD.<\/p>\n
It’s been used in adults for years, but only recently in children. In fact, fewer than ten children’s hospitals in the nation have used these devices.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact: <\/b><\/p>\n
Jackie Ferman Manager, Media Relations St. Louis Children’s Hospital (314) 286-0304 slchmedia@bjc.org <\/b><\/p>\n
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