6-Year-Old Boy Receives Heart After Waiting 4 Years on Transplant List

Carlos Rolon
Facebook/Team Baby Carlos

A six-year-old boy received a working heart after waiting for four years on the transplant list.

“He’s doing great. They said he’s doing amazing,” his mom, Sheena Cossette, told CNN.

Carlos Rolon is still in the intensive care unit at Boston Children’s Hospital recovering from the surgery, but his mother already noticed a difference in her son.

“My first reaction was his color,” because his skin had a bluish-gray tone before the surgery. “When I looked at him, his color was amazing,” she said.

Cossette said his breathing was much smoother and his oxygen levels were at 100 percent.

Cossette said Carlos was born with a heart abnormality called unbalanced atrioventricular canal defect, and had four open-heart surgeries before the age of two.

Carlos made the transplant list in 2016, but he was still able to have a semi-normal life in his Worcester, Massachusetts, home and was able to go to school.

But his health took a turn for the worse last year, and Carlos has been hospitalized at Boston Children’s since August 31.

Carlos’s mom talked to his primary care doctor about the transplant because she worried that the coronavirus might affect things.

“A few hours later, he came up and told me he had one,” she said. “And I think that was the biggest shock for me like, wow, it almost was so unreal.”

Carlos and his donor were both tested for the coronavirus, and after they both tested negative, Carlos successfully underwent a nine-hour transplant surgery at the hospital on Friday, WCVB reported.

Carlos’s mom said he has a two-to-three week recovery ahead of him at the hospital before he can be cleared to go home, but when they do go home the family will be quarantining because of Carlos’s weakened immune system.

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