PROVIDENCE HEART INSTITUTE – A heart transplant patient is celebrating one year since her surgery with a passionate “thank you” for her care team.
Patrice Krant had arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia. It’s hereditary – her dad had it, as well as her brother and sister – and it basically means her heart wasn’t pumping enough blood to the rest of her body.
Before her transplant, Patrice’s surgeon told her, frankly, that her heart belonged in a bucket.
“I had roughly three months to live when I got my heart,” she says.
Dozens of caregivers helped with Patrice’s surgery, recovery and road to her one-year anniversary. She let KPTV Channel 12 join in and document the celebration.
“I just want to say thank you to everyone who is here. Every one of you have touched my life in so many ways in these last 14 months, and I really can’t thank you enough,” Patrice told the caregivers.
Patrice Krant rings a bell in celebration for her one-year anniversary of a successful heart transplant. She was joined by Kevin Koomalsingh, M.D., and other caregivers who supported her on this journey.
Patrice is the 33rd recipient of a heart transplant from Providence Heart Institute’s heart failure and transplant program. That number has now topped 50 procedures since the program launched about three years ago.
Cardiologist Josh Remick, M.D., says Patrice’s condition doesn’t always lead to heart failure, but when it does, the heart transplant could be the best remaining option for living a healthy life.
Dr. Remick says there are probably 10 times as many patients who need a heart transplant, compared to the number of available donated hearts. Because we are not yet at a point technologically where we can create a new heart in a lab or build a device that can function in place of that vital organ, heart donors remain critically important to so many patients.
Patrice and her family are immensely grateful for her new heart, and Dr. Remick is so pleased to see Patrice happy and healthy, one year after her life-changing transplant.
“We take the normal and the routine for granted a lot of the time, and I think just being able to do those kinds of things again in her home environment – it’s why I went into this field, it’s why we all do this, to give patients that opportunity.”
Watch the story on KPTV Channel 12:
