Wendy Leung, Staff Writer | Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Construction paper hearts are taped on walls. Heart-shaped helium balloons float toward the ceiling. A sparkly mobile of rotating hearts hang from hospital equipment.
But there's just one heart that Lauren, 4, truly needs. One that would replace her ailing and partially functioning one. A heart that she's been waiting for since November.
"We're praying," said Lauren's mother Camille Gentry. "We're confident that we'll get the call soon."
Lauren, a Rancho Cucamonga resident, was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which means the left side of her heart does not function. At 5 days old, Lauren had her first of three surgeries that would allow her to lead a relatively normal life with just two of four chambers of her heart functioning.
It was believed that a heart transplant wouldn't be necessary until Lauren became a young adult.
But last year, Lauren contracted H1N1 and her health deteriorated. Today, the young girl rests in her hospital bed every day waiting anxiously for a new heart. She's on the top of the waiting list.
"Everyone is surprised it has been this long," Gentry said. "The hospital staff is now like family."
It has been 14 weeks of waiting. On a recent day at the Loma Linda hospital, Lauren, with her dirty blond hair pulled in a loose ponytail, whittled the time away by watching Dora the Explorer. Spongebob Squarepants, puzzles and coloring books also keep her company. Taped at the foot of her bed is a computer print-out of the family's cocker spaniel, Sammy.
She likes some nurses, but wails at the sight of doctors with blue scrubs. They're the ones who poke her with needles.
"We have good days, we have bad days," Gentry said. "It's hard to be a mom and not be able to fix your child."
Gentry and her husband take turns spending the night on the recliner next to Lauren's bed and going home to spend time with Lauren's siblings, Noah, 11, and Juliette, 8. Gentry said she usually stays for two nights and take one night off.
"After three nights, I go batty," she said.
Every year, about 40,000 babies in the country are like Lauren, born with a congenital heart defect, which is the most frequently occurring birth defect and the leading cause of birth-defect related deaths, according to the Congenital Heart Awareness Network.
After Lauren was born, Gentry started Babies So Special, a support group at the Loma Linda hospital that gathers parents of babies with birth defects.
Last week was Congenital Heart Awareness Week and next month is Organ Donor Awareness Month, a time when Gentry wants the community to know about Lauren and the family's plight.
"It's such a difficult decision," Gentry said about a parent's choice to donate their child's organs. "I hope they know in their grief, they can also bring hope."
Lauren's story has garnered support far and wide. At a recent Rancho Cucamonga City Council meeting, a woman prayed for Lauren's recovery during the public comment portion. Lauren has a Facebook following of more than 800 friends, all pulling for her to get that healthy heart.
But the positive energy sometimes isn't enough to lift the spirits of a young girl who tells her mother she's ready to leave the hospital. Lauren said when she gets a new heart, she wants to go home and just run around.
"For being 4 and having to stay here this whole time, it just amazes me," Gentry said. "She's the strongest, bravest person I know."
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