By Jenny Morber on Wed, 18 Mar 2015
Eight years ago, Stephen and Amelie Trice learned that their three-year-old son Troupe needed a new heart. After many months of perplexing symptoms—small size, low energy, enlarged liver—Troupe was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy, an extremely rare and deadly condition in which the heart is unable to relax between heartbeats.
There is no cure and very few treatments. Despite his doctors’ attempts to manage his condition with medicine, Troupe’s health deteriorated. Afraid of losing their son, the Trices sought the expertise of a cardiologist at Children’s Hospital in Atlanta. The doctor sat the worried parents down and over two hours explained that Troupe needed a heart transplant. Amelie recalls, “With a diagnosis of certain death, our only option was to cross our fingers that we were going to get more time with a new heart.” The Trices went back home to Alabama, explained what they had learned as best they could to Troupe, and waited. Two months later, the couple were out with friends when they got the call.
Read more via The Technology That Will Eliminate the Need for Organ Donors.