Zoey White awoke Jan. 1 with a soft-but-joyful greeting for her family: “Happy New Year!”
No big deal. Except that the 16-year-old Columbus North High School junior had just survived a life-saving and life-changing nine-hour heart transplant surgery that is expected to make this a happy new year indeed. With more to come.
“New year, new heart,” she said recently from her bed at Indianapolis’ Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health, where she is expected to be for a couple months. “That’s been my motto.”
She speaks with an unbridled optimism. Yes, she acknowledges that her challenges since fall, including a spinal surgery and more hospitalization, make her all the more long for home, for her siblings, and for her beloved 4-year-old cat, Snibbles. But mom Barbara White said that her daughter has exhibited an uncommon patience and fortitude ever since she was born with a connective tissue disorder known as Marfan syndrome.
Those with the condition tend to be tall — Zoey is 6-feet-1 — and thin, with long arms, legs, fingers, and toes with complications involving the heart and aorta, according to mayoclinic.org. Zoey’s heart begin to wear out the past few months, her mom said, until she became seriously ill with blood clots in mid-December and was hospitalized at Riley. On Dec. 29, doctors and family decided to put her on the heart transplant list.
Normally, that translates to a three- to six-month wait.
But, inexplicably, within 36 hours, Zoey and her mom got a call that a heart and hope was on the way.
“That was crazy,” Zoey said.
“I think that’s a miracle,” said neighbor Shirley Elgar.
Elgar got Zoey involved in the local Royalty Athletix Angels special-needs cheerleading squad, which allowed her to be even more of an overcomer despite her physical challenges.
“I think that definitely helped her so much emotionally — especially the idea of being able to do something physically that people earlier had told her that she couldn’t do,” mom said
So far, Zoey’s body is accepting the new organ with no complications. After awakening from the surgery, Zoey told her mom she immediately “felt so much better.”
So very much better, in fact, that she had a simple request.
“She … asked for her phone within minutes of waking up, showing that nothing, not even heart surgery, can come between a teenager and her phone,” said Jordan Jewett, Zoey’s uncle who with others has organized a Go Fund Me campaign for the family while single mom nurse Barbara cares for her daughter (fiancé Lee Garling is helping with her other children at home). Mom’s return to work to provide for her family is made more complicated by the fact Zoey’s immune system is understandably sensitive, and Barbara’s position at Columbus Regional Hospital puts her in the presence of COVID-19 patients.
Plus, Barbara already used vacation time and family leave time in September and beyond when Zoey’s scoliosis, related to Marfan syndrome, required surgery and close monitoring afterward because of her delicate frame.
“We have lived this for nearly 16 years now,” mom said. “I’ve always had to be focused on the next step.”
As a medical professional who formerly worked with lung transplant patients at Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, she quickly understood most of the details of her daughter’s dramatic procedure.
“I knew what we were signing up for,” Mom said.
Zoey’s previous 12 surgeries include one in 2015 to replace an aortic root and repair her mitral valve. She went into cardiac arrest the day after the procedure. Mom seems as struck as anyone by her daughter’s focused perseverance.
“You could never really tell that Zoey was as sick as she has been just from talking to her,” Barbara said. “She’s been amazingly upbeat through everything, and just a pretty resilient kid.”
Mom got a look at hospital photos of her daughter’s original heart that grew to be oversized, and the new one, and was amazed.
“There’s just an insane difference,” she said.
Same for her girl, who already is feeling a big change.
“When I woke up and took those first few breaths, even while I was intubated, I was like ‘Woa! And now it’s fun to sit here and just feel my heart beat. Wow, it’s just crazy.
“And it beats a lot more steady now, that’s for sure. My other one was very hyperactive.”
Hyperactive? Zoey White would love the chance to be that as an everyday teen — all in her happy new year.
