38岁的老人有过3颗心脏:“这是第三次机会”

Melanie Wickersheim has no memory of the first time her heart gave her trouble. She was an infant, and her pediatric myocarditis – an inflammation of the muscular walls of the heart – resolved before she was old enough to know anything had ever been wrong.

她和其他孩子一样在洛杉矶度过了人生的前十年, 相信她非常健康. Until suddenly, she wasn't. She couldn't hold down food. 她感到非常虚弱，几乎走不动路. “我记得我试图穿过一个停车场. I had to stop at every light pole to take a breath, panting for air," she said.

Her doctor said she had the flu. But it went on for weeks. "We took her to the emergency room multiple times," said her mother, Linda Cerniga. "They never found anything wrong."

Then one day, "I looked at her legs and noticed her feet were swollen, and I knew." As a nurse, Cerniga recognized swollen feet as one of the hallmark signs of heart failure.

医生给她的女儿开了心脏病药. “但她真的没有进步，”Cerniga说. "It kept getting worse."

After months in and out of the hospital, Cerniga learned her daughter would need a heart transplant. While they waited for a match, 母女俩睡在同一张床上, Cerniga keeping a hand on her little girl's heart to be sure it was still beating.

A match came within a week. The transplant went well. 康复后，Wickersheim在医院庆祝了她的11岁生日. 很快，她又回到了一个相对正常的童年.

"I could breathe again," she said. "I could walk across the room. 我的心不再砰砰直跳了. 我很兴奋能回到学校，见到我的朋友们."

With the new heart came a new routine involving numerous anti-rejection medications taken throughout the day. 与她所获得的一切相比，这只是一个小小的代价. "I wasn't ready to die at 10. 我知道我还有很长的路要走. 我非常感激每一天，”她说.

But as she entered her teenage years, Wickersheim became anxious and depressed. She had panic attacks. 她寻求心理健康支持，并学会了如何解决这些问题, 继续上大学和研究生院. She moved to Chicago. She studied abroad in France. 她坠入爱河，结了婚，搬到了旧金山. She had a child, using a surrogate to protect her heart and her daughter's health. They named the baby Greta.

“所有这些美妙的事情都发生了，”Wickersheim说. "It was remarkable how much I was able to live and how normal I was able to be."

格蕾塔1岁时，一家人去加利福尼亚的葡萄酒之乡旅行. Wickersheim started feeling some mild chest pain and assumed it was another panic attack. But she also had pain in her back. “我想也许我睡得很怪，”她说. “我向医生报告了我的症状，但我没有听我身体的. 我通常都很擅长，但我想好好享受我的假期."

Four days later, a cold flash engulfed her body, followed by severe abdominal pain. She was having a heart attack.

Transplanted hearts can develop cardiac allograft vasculopathy – a condition in which the blood vessels leading to the heart narrow and become blocked. 它是移植受者死亡的主要原因之一, 在10年内影响了大约一半的心脏移植受者. It can lead to heart failure, severe arrhythmias, sudden cardiac death or, as in Wickersheim's case, a heart attack.

Her health never fully recovered. She tired more easily. Within a year, Wickersheim was having trouble holding down food – just as she had as a 10-year-old. One day she looked at a selfie she had taken at the beach and was shocked at her appearance. “我看起来皮包骨，”她说.

她的医生告诉她，她需要另一个心脏和一个新的肾脏. 但首先她得增重. 她身高5英尺5英寸，体重112磅. She needed to be closer to 120. In the meantime, 她接受了植入式心律转复除颤器, or ICD, a device that could restore her heart's normal rhythm should it become abnormal.

Wickersheim was so weak that her mother moved in to help her husband care for her and for Greta, who was 2. 她做饭来帮助女儿增重. 但Wickersheim仍然每天晚上哄女儿睡觉.

“我会给她一个额外的吻，把她抱得更紧, because I wasn't sure if it was going to be the day I got the call for a new heart, 或者今天是我心脏衰竭的日子," she said.

葛丽塔看得出有些不对劲. She'd ask, "Mommy, when are you going to get better so you can chase me and pick me up?"

两个月后，wickerheim终于接到了电话. 她的女儿在手术的前一天晚上被允许进入她的病房. “她给了我很多吻和拥抱，”她回忆说. "It was unprompted. 每个人都很爱我，尤其是我的女儿."

维克斯海姆得到了一颗新的心脏和一个肾脏. 她已经一年多没有排异反应了, 对移植受者来说，这是一个重要的里程碑. 大多数急性器官排斥反应发生在最初的12个月内.

Now 38 and living in Minneapolis, Wickersheim is trying to make the most of her new life. 她在女儿的学校找了份代课老师的工作, allowing her to see more of her daughter while reviving a career she'd put on pause because of her health. She also took a CPR class so that she's prepared to save a life should she be around someone who goes into cardiac arrest. 她提倡提高对……的认识 女性心脏病发作的症状有何不同, so that more women might recognize what's happening to their bodies should something go wrong.

她知道每一天都是一份礼物——她珍惜每一天.

“这是第三次机会，”Wickersheim说. “这颗心脏可能会让我再活30年. I get to keep living my life. There's nothing better than that."

Stories From the Heart chronicles the inspiring journeys of heart disease and stroke survivors, caregivers and advocates.