Heart, Heart Transplant, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

Days-old heart transplant recipient now 32, healthy and loving ‘life to the fullest’

Infant heart transplants are never routine, but for a child who wouldn’t otherwise survive a congenital heart defect, they’ve become much more common. That wasn’t the case 32 years ago when Leslie Keown of Franklin, Kentucky, was born. Transplanting the heart of a days-old baby was almost unheard of, but it was a lifesaving procedure…

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Childrens Hospital Foundation, Heart, Heart Transplant, Home & BMW Raffle, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Norton Childrens Hospital, Patient Stories

Once too fragile for a heart transplant, young P.J. and his family look to a bright future

Philmore Jackson III, is a courageous young man whose medical journey has taken many twists and turns. By age 3, Philmore, who goes by P.J., had been near death many times. By many accounts, there wasn’t much hope for him to live to his fourth birthday. Born in 2014 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, P.J. was…

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Heart, Heart Transplant, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Patient Stories

Remembering Baby Calvin

In 1986, Robbie Cardin became Norton Children’s and Kentucky’s first pediatric heart transplant patient. As you can imagine, his plight was covered by the media. Robbie was referred to as “Baby Calvin” to protect his family’s privacy. Robbie was born by cesarean section at Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Doctors knew right away something…

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