对15岁的威尔弗雷来说，梦想成真了:去年秋天，他以大一新生的身份进入了校足球队.

但就在一年前，这位足球明星的希望还很渺茫. His life was on the line.

2020年圣诞节前一周，皮内拉斯公园的青少年进入了 Emergency Center at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. 这位看似健康的15岁少年病情急转，突然需要最有力的生命维持手段——体外膜氧合(ECMO)。.

His heart was failing him. Time was of the essence. 

“I couldn’t breathe well. 我一直在呕吐和腹泻，”威尔弗雷回忆道. “I was really sick.” 

Meagan King, R.N., and Daren D. Coleman, a pediatric paramedic, 立即注意到心跳加快，心律异常, low temperature and rapid breathing. 

That prompted Danielle Hirsch, M.D., 约翰霍普金斯儿童医院急救中心(EC)的一名急诊内科医生，当天值班, to order a chest X-ray and an electrocardiogram (EKG). 

“结果显示他的心脏很大，不能正常工作，”赫希说. “His vital signs were becoming more unstable.”

He went into cardiac arrest for two minutes. The EC team stabilized his heart rhythm, while the pediatric cardiology team and cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU) 医疗队随时待命，手拉手照顾威尔弗雷. 心脏外科医生迅速对威尔弗雷进行体外膜肺氧合，以维持他的生命.

“感觉世界停止了——那一刻对我来说非常可怕，”威尔弗雷的妈妈玛丽亚说.

他还没有脱离危险，但是CVICU小组，在心脏外科医生的指导下 James Quintessenza, M.D. now had him under their care and watchful eye.

“The walls get thin and the heart chambers enlarge. That’s a function of deterioration of the heart,” explains Quintessenza, 约翰·霍普金斯儿童医院的联合主任 Heart Institute. “It looked like it had been going for days, weeks, maybe months, 但威尔弗雷达到了一个临界点，他的心脏无法跟上.”

Wilfre从ECMO转为人工泵来支持他的左心室, which was the identified problem area. 他坚持了10天，每隔一天接受一次超声心动图检查，检查时关掉泵，看看他的心脏是如何独立运作的. 这是一场等待的游戏，看他的心脏是否会恢复.

“We gave that heart a good chance of getting better, but it just never quite looked like it was going to,” Quintessenza says. “But all of the parts of the Heart Institute and heart transplant program were in place. There’s a whole village involved.”

Within four days, Wilfre had a match. On Jan. 6, 2021, after about four hours in the operating room, Wilfre had his new heart and a second chance at life. A few days later, 他在CVICU的走廊里和救了他一命的医生们一起传球.

“看到他在离我们只有一步之遥的几周后还在踢球，真是太不可思议了,” says Quintessenza. 

Today, 威尔弗雷恢复得很好，没有任何症状，现在又回到了迪克西霍林斯高中的足球场上. 自从他7岁起，这项运动就一直是他的激情所在，这是他生活中很重要的一部分.

目前，威尔弗雷每个月都要到儿科心脏移植项目诊所随访 Alfred Asante-Korang, M.D., FACC他是一名儿科心脏病专家，20多年来一直在照顾心脏移植后的患者. Heart transplants involve lifelong follow-up care, but in time, the appointments become less frequent. 

“威尔弗雷是一个完美的移植推荐十大正规网赌平台，他服用了移植药物，从未失败过, and he is now only taking four medications,” Asante-Korang says. “整个移植团队都很喜欢他，当我们看到他时，他给我们带来了快乐.”

As for the Emergency Center team of physicians, nurses, paramedics, residents, 当威尔弗雷进门时，药剂师们立即行动起来, 看到他再次在足球场上奔跑，他们欣喜若狂.

“威尔弗雷是一个我永远不会忘记的孩子，”赫希说. “他真的是一个了不起的人，他克服了巨大的障碍, 我希望他在经历了这一切之后，知道自己可以克服一切，在未来继续做出令人惊叹的事情.”

威尔弗雷将很快接受心脏导管检查和活检, and if he continues on his current trajectory, his heart is expected to last well into mid-adulthood.

“我很高兴带着一颗全新的心脏活着，”威尔弗雷说.