Whose heart beats inside her?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110731/NEWS01/307319976#whose-heart-beats-inside-her

Photo: http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=OW&Date=20110731&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=307319976&Ref=AR&maxw=490&maxh=275
Photo JAMES R. BURNETT/THE WORLD-HERALD
Hannah Hetherington, center, received a donor heart at the Nebraska Medical Center in May. She is flanked by her family mother Ann, father Jack and brother Mitchell.

Published Sunday July 31, 2011

Hannah Hetherington wonders whose heart beats inside her.

She wonders if it was a boy or girl, or perhaps an adult, who donated the organ. She ponders what situation may have led to that person's death.

For a while, she wept at the thought that someone's death gave her new life.

"I think about the donor every day," she said Saturday. "I would cry because I'm alive because of someone else. I wouldn't be here without them."

There is no denying that someone had to die for her to acquire a new heart, but 16-year-old Hannah's story by itself is about life, not grief. She celebrated Saturday with about 280 other organ recipients at the Nebraska Medical Center's annual transplant reunion.

The event at the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Convention Center recognized the medical center's 41-year history of transplants and the more than 4,820 people who have received kidneys, livers, intestines and other organs there.

The heart program at the medical center is fairly small. Surgeons transplanted 21 hearts there last year.

FULL story at link.

[Snoutport]

1. Very moving, thank you for sharing

[trotsky]

2. Remember to sign up to be an organ donor, folks!

I love stories like this.

[PSPS]

3. Qui Transtulit Sustinet

[handmade34]

4. does my heart good...

wonderful story... (and I am signed up as an organ donor and my entire body has been promised to University for research!!)


truth be known... as Hannah remarks "...I'm alive because of someone else. I wouldn't be here without them." ...the same holds true for all of us, even though we have not received transplants, we are alive because others have given and worked and sacrificed...