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TABBY’S TRANSPLANT
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7-year-old receives heart ahead of 21 nonmatches
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS — Twenty-two will probably become Tabitha Fiorenza’s lucky number.
Tabitha, or Tabby, as her family and friends call the plucky 7-year-old, had a heart transplant Sept. 3 and is expected to be back in school in January with her second-grade classmates at Struthers Elementary.
The No. 22 is significant because Tabitha was 22nd in line for the heart she received.
Twenty-one people in front of her couldn’t accept the heart because it wasn’t a match, said Tabitha’s parents, Lori and Michael Fiorenza. Lori got the call they had been anxiously awaiting from the Cleveland Clinic — that a heart was available — at 4 p.m. Sept. 2 while Michael was at work.
Packed and ready to go, they left their other children, Hayley, 5, and Alex, 11 months at the time, with Lori’s parents, John and Lois Porter of Austintown, and drove to the clinic, arriving at 7 p.m. Hospital staff prepared Tabitha for transplant surgery and took her to the operating room at 5 a.m. Sept. 3. By 11:30 a.m., she had her new heart.
Tabby has a pink color to her face and hands now, compared with the blue color she sometimes had before getting her new heart. She is “full of energy and spunk,” said her aunt, Mary Ellks, Michael’s sister.
“The first thing Tabby showed me when I visited her at the Ronald McDonald were her hands. They were pink,” Ellks said.
Tabby said: “Feel me, Aunt Mary. I’m warm.”
“The doctors talked to us after the surgery and told us that the surgery went better than expected. During the operation, they found a hole in her old her heart and evidence that she’d had a couple of heart attacks at home which we weren’t aware of,” Lori said.
Tabitha was very aware that she needed a new heart.
When The Vindicator’s reporter and photographer came to her house to interview Tabitha and her family in March, she greeted them at the door by saying: “Hi. My name is Tabitha and I need a new heart.”
During the March interview, she explained what would happen to her: “They have to put me on a machine and put me to sleep and take out my heart and put a new one in.”
“I think it was a girl,” Tabitha said softly of the person whose heart now beats strongly in her chest. “Thank you,” she said to the donor family.
Michael and Lori also thanked the donor family, almost at a loss for words to express themselves.
“That was hard to talk about,” said Ellks. “It is sad to think that another child had to die to give Tabitha life. We prayed for the other family,” she said.
Michael and Lori also expressed their gratitude to the people of Struthers and surrounding communities for their financial help and prayers while Tabitha and Lori were in Cleveland for an extended stay.
“God heard the prayers. I thank you, and God bless you for your support,” said Michael.
Tabitha’s medical bills are covered by Michael’s insurance at his place of work, Youngstown Thermal, and the Ohio Department of Health’s Bureau for Children with Medical Handicaps. Still, there are expenses not covered by insurance.
Fundraisers organized by family and friends generated about $6,000, part of which paid for Tabitha and her mother to stay at the Ronald McDonald House in Cleveland, and the cost of transportation back and fourth from Struthers to Cleveland, enabling the family to stay out of financial difficulties.
Michael said the family is also grateful to the Make a Wish Foundation, which granted the family an all-expenses-paid vacation to Disney World in Florida last July.
While Tabitha and Lori were in Cleveland, Michael worked through the week and joined them on the weekends. Tabitha doesn’t like to be alone in the hospital, so one of her parents stayed with her all the time.
During the week, Lois and John Porter of Austintown, Lori’s parents, took care of Hayley and Alex and got Hayley off to kindergarten. Before Tabitha came home, her aunts, Ellks and Suzie Barris, and grandmother, Frances Fiorenza, Michael’s mother, cleaned the Fiorenzas’ home to protect Tabby, whose immune system is weakened by the drugs, from infections.
Tabitha stayed in the hospital until Sept. 16 and then was lodged at the Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland for a month with her mother before coming home Oct. 16. Tabitha returned to the Cleveland Clinic on Nov. 12 for a heart biopsy to determine if her body is rejecting her new heart. “There were no problems,” her mother said.
Tabitha daily takes antibiotics to prevent infections and anti-rejection medicines, which she will have to take the rest of her life, her mother said.
Tabitha was born without the heart valve that regulates blood flow to her lungs. The condition, double right ventricle outlet with pulmonary atresia, is a rare congenital heart defect in which both the pulmonary valve and the aorta arise from the same ventricle (double ventricle outlet) instead of from separate ventricles, according to the American Heart Association.
When she was 4 days old, Tabitha had surgery at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland to insert a shunt in place of the missing valve. At age 2, there was more surgery, this time at Akron Children’s Hospital, to replace the shunt with part of one of her veins.
The condition left Tabitha without the energy and stamina to run and play like other children.
Now the little girl, whose favorite television shows are “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Hannah Montana,” says she likes playing with her friends and can run faster and jump higher than she used to. Hopscotch and jump rope are favorite activities.
“She said to me a couple of days ago, ‘Guess what, Daddy? I don’t cough and get tired anymore,’” said Michael, a 1984 graduate of Poland High School. Her mother, Lori, graduated in 1990 from Chaney High School.
“Excited and relieved” was how Michael and Lori said they felt when Tabitha got her new heart. “I can sleep a lot better now ... a lot better,” Michael said.
Before her transplant, Tabitha said she wanted to be a teacher. Since, she has changed her mind. “I want to be a doctor,” she said.
alcorn@vindy.com