Six-Year-Old Boy Finally Gets New Heart After Waiting Four Years On Transplant List

Apr 21, 2020 by apost team

After waiting on the organ transplant list for four years, six-year-old Worcester, Massachusetts resident Carlos Rolon finally has a new heart as of this month. The young boy has been in and out of the hospital and has undergone multiple heart procedures since his birth after doctors diagnosed him with a heart defect.

The condition, which stems from an abnormally formed heart valve, affects how the heart pumps blood, according to The Boston Globe. Before his operation, Rolon had a hole between the chambers in his heart, meaning that blood would not flow properly. But now that he’s finally received a transplant, Rolon’s mother, Sheen Cossette, told CNN that he's doing better.

"He's doing great. They said he's doing amazing," Cosette told the news outlet.

apost.com

Rolon was diagnosed with the rare condition, an unbalanced atrioventricular canal defect, when his mother was five months pregnant, according to The Globe. And by the time the boy was two years old, he had already undergone several surgeries. At that point, doctors told Costello that her son would need five open heart surgeries by his fifth birthday at which point she realized that something needed to change. From that moment on in early 2016, Rolon was put onto the transplant list for a new heart.

Since the end of last summer, Rolon has been hospitalized at Boston’s Children Hospital awaiting news from the transplant list. But after around eight months of being hospitalized on April 2, doctors told the family that they had found a donor for their son to Cosette’s shock and disbelief.

“I was numb,” she told The Globe. “It’s so hard to sum up what we’ve been through.”

The Globe reports that on April 3, just one day after hearing the news, doctors operated on Costello for nine hours. Following the surgery, Costello was weak at first — doctors had to put him on a breathing tube in the intensive care unit — but his mother says he’s getting stronger and has begun to walk again.

When Costello fully recovers after this long ordeal of countless surgeries and visits to hospitals, he and his family are looking forward to returning to a more normal life. For Costello and his family, that includes travelling and swimming together and playing video games like Fortnite, according to The Globe.

“He loves his video games,” Cosette told the paper. “That’s one thing that actually helps us through all this because he stays interacting with people on the outside through the game.”

More than 113,000 Americans are on the organ transplant list, according to Donate Life America's Website, an organization that encourages others to register as eye, tissue and organ donors. April also happens to be National Donate Life Month.

Speaking to the hardships of constant hospitalizations and awaiting her son’s transplant for so long, Cosette told The Globe that she gets her strength both from her faith and her son’s smile.

“One thing I’ve learned from this is to keep my faith and stay strong,” Cossette told the paper. “Regardless of what he’s been through, Carlos always has a smile on his face and I think that’s where I get my strength from. If he’s not down, how can I be down?”

What do you think of Carlos Rolon's inspiring story? Do you know someone who has had to wait on the donor list? Let us know and make sure to pass this touching story on to friends and family members.