Baby Gets Second Chance at Life with New Heart PKG

CLEVELAND – From the looks of it, you’d never know Rachel Collins’ son Mikey has been through so much, but the little boy who will be two in April, has already undergone multiple surgeries and received a heart transplant.

“Early in my pregnancy they found some indication that he was having some issues,” Rachel recalled.” We didn’t know what specifically between a chromosome and a heart condition, but it was determined that he had hypoplastic right heart syndrome, where the right side of the heart was underdeveloped.”

After Mikey was born, more complications ensued and by the time he was four months old, doctors at Cleveland Clinic Children’s decided he needed a new heart.

“With the makeup of the heart itself, the anatomy, going through surgery, sometimes the heart muscle is too weak to sustain itself and this was the case with Mikey,” said Gerard Boyle, MD, pediatric cardiologist with Cleveland Clinic Children’s.

Dr. Boyle said Mikey was on the waiting list for three months before they found a match.

“It’s an eternity for a mother, but it’s actually a pretty short time now-a-days for our patients,” he said.

Rachel said from there, doctors wasted no time getting Mikey in for surgery, and thankfully everything went well.

Now, he’s finally back home and working on different milestones he missed while he was recovering in the hospital.

“He now knows how to sit up, he can’t walk yet, but extremely blessed to see the strides he’s making,” she said fondly.

Rachel said she’s thankful to the team of doctors who helped give her son a second chance at life and looks forward to making new memories with him.

“We want to do so many things with him this summer, go to the zoo, because we never do know what it’s going to end up being,” she said.

The family is planning a big celebration for his second birthday in April since he was in the hospital for his first.