Brave hearts: Faces of heart transplant | Emory University | Atlanta, GA

Brave hearts: Faces of heart transplant

July 24, 2014

Your heart weighs about 10 ounces and is the epicenter of your body. A muscle shaped like a pear and protected by a cage of ribs, it pumps more than a gallon of blood through your circulatory system every minute. Electric signals make your heart contract and relax, contract and relax, 60 to 100 times a minute. Its beat responds to your level of exertion and your emotions — faster with fear, slower with contentment. An average lifetime measured in heartbeats: 2.5 billion. The people in this slide show are well aware of the importance of this muscle. Through illness or genetics, their hearts gave out, and through a generosity beyond imagining, they were given another chance, through heart transplant at Emory. As you will see, they are making every beat count.

For the complete photo essay, see the online extra in Emory Medicine magazine.

Photos by Jack Kearse, Emory University

via Brave hearts: Faces of heart transplant | Emory University | Atlanta, GA.