Transplant gives Pike teen new heart, hopeful start

By Ernest Herndon, Enterprise-Journal

Jessica Harris has a heart.

The 17-year-old McComb girl who desperately needed a transplant but lacked insurance received a new heart Friday during a 10-hour surgery at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York, according to her mother, Hazel Harris.

“The expected outcome is that she will live a full life,” Mrs. Harris said in a telephone interview Saturday evening. “I’m elated.”

Jessica was still under sedation and not fully conscious Saturday evening, but she was showing signs of awareness, and doctors considered her condition stable.

Jessica was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and had four heart surgeries before the transplant. Her condition worsened last year, and doctors said the only hope was a transplant. But she wasn’t covered under her father’s employee health insurance because her condition was pre-existing.

The new national health care plan sponsored by President Obama did away with that obstacle on Jan. 1, and the Harrises immediately got busy seeking a heart.

It wasn’t so easy.

“We tried several other hospitals and they turned us down because the surgery, they said, was too risky,” Mrs. Harris said. “Jessica, they said, would bleed out during the surgery. Since she has already had four open-heart surgeries, there would be too much bleeding and she would not make it through the surgery.”

Morgan Stanley hospital agreed to conduct an evalution in late January, “but there was still no guarantee,” Mrs. Harris said.

“Once we had the evaluation done, they said everything looked good; they would do it.”

Jessica’s name went on a transplant list Feb. 10.

“She was at the top of the list because she was really in need of one,” Mrs. Harris said.

At lunchtime this past Thursday, the Harrises got word a heart had become available. Even then it was possible the organ wouldn’t be suitable.

“We prayed, and around midnight they came and got her and took her to the operating room,” Mrs. Harris said. “They started the incision at 3 a.m. and she didn’t get back up to ICU until about 1 (p.m.). She did do a lot of bleeding. It was risky.”

Doctors had to replace the aorta after finding two aneurisms there. Mrs. Harris said the aneurisms explained Jessica’s chronic chest pain.

“She’d been walking around a long time with that — years. That was the chest pain.”

The pace of the recovery is uncertain at this point, Mrs. Harris said.

“It’s just one of those wait-and-see things,” she said. “It’s going to be a long road.”

Like Dorothy in Oz

Still pending is the possibility that Jessica will get to meet Michelle Obama.

In an October Enterprise-Journal article, Jessica expressed a wish to meet TV star Brandy Norwood of McComb. Norwood and her mother Sonja arranged a visit to California, where Brandy threw a 17th birthday party for Jessica, appeared with her on “Entertainment Tonight” and got her a seat in the audience on “Dancing with the Stars,” on which Brandy was a contestant.”

Jessica also was accepted by the Make A Wish Foundation of Jackson and expressed the wish to meet Mrs. Obama.

“That’s still in the works,” Mrs. Harris said. “Jessica is too sick to travel. From what I understand, we have received the clearance to go, but it’s about getting an appointment on the calendar.”

As exciting as all that is, it pales before the fact that Jessica has a heart. Mrs. Harris said she knows how the character Dorothy felt in “Wizard of Oz” when the Tin Man finally got a heart.

“That’s how I feel right about now,” she said.

Yet her joy is tempered by awareness that someone had to die to donate an organ. “Not only are we grateful that Jessica got a transplant, we’re also mindful of the family that donated,” Mrs. Harris said.

Prior to the surgery, Jessica told her mother “to tell the people of McComb, ‘Thank you for all you’ve done for us,’ ” Mrs. Harris said.

The Harrises moved to McComb in 2009. Mrs. Harris said the family has been overwhelmed by the response to Jessica’s condition, from prayers to donations to kind words.

“I just wanted the whole community to know that we appreciate it,” she said. “They didn’t have to reach out like they did. We can’t express enough gratitude.”