Meet Real Women

Nykia

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Some people wait years for a new heart. Eighteen-year-old Nykia only had to wait nine days.

“They put me on the list on a Monday,” she recalled, “and by the next Thursday, I was having the transplant. It was just a little over a week I had to wait.

“My function was down to 10 to 15 percent, and there I was laying in the hospital bed, waiting for a heart. I woke every morning, thinking, ‘Okay, this is the day.’ Then on Wednesday, the nurse came in and said, ‘We have a potential heart.’ I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, is this real?’ It was just like a movie or something.”

Nykia’s heart issues had come out of the blue. She was a freshman at the University of Tennessee on an academic scholarship, while continuing to pursue her love of the game of basketball. Then on a routine annual physical, the doctors discovered she had a heart problem. This was the first time she’d heard of it.

That was August 2008. By October, she found herself in an ambulance being rushed to a Nashville hospital with chest pain. They decided she needed a transplant and she was transferred to Saint Thomas Hospital. On November 20, Dr. Mark Tedder and the Saint Thomas Hospital transplant team gave Nykia her new heart.

“It’s six-hour surgery normally, but it only took Dr. Tedder three hours and 46 minutes. He was an awesome doctor. He came in and checked on me every day before and after the surgery.

But it wasn’t just him,” Nykia quickly added. “I mean my cardiologists Dr, Aaron and Dr. Chomsky and both nurse practitioners took great care of me. The R.N.s. on duty from 7 to 7, they all were there, you know, talking to me. Some even came to check on me—not even on the clock--when they were off-duty. I really felt loved and cared about.”

No one expects an 18-year-old heart to fail, especially one that belongs to such a healthy athlete. “At first they were thinking it was viral. They thought I got it when I was in the woods camping. But when they actually took my heart out, they did an autopsy. They found it was a cell--just one cell in my heart--that made the whole inside of my heart bad. It was not producing as it was supposed to. Just one cell caused the whole thing. It was genetic.”

Her recovery was swift. “I remember the very first time I got up to walk after the transplant. I think it was after 48 hours,” Nykia said with emotion. “I had been in a bed for a month and half. And finally to get up, it was like, ‘My goodness, I can walk again.’ Because most people take it for granted they can get up and walk whenever they want. But I had to lay in bed and couldn’t move at all. So when I finally got up, I was thankful I could even put one foot in front of the other.”

Nykia attributes some of her recovery to the power of prayer. “I thank Him every day for the opportunity to have a second life, to even come through this. The transplant changed my life drastically. I’m more thankful and grateful to wake up every day--that they even have the technology to do a heart transplant. Because if they didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

Until she returns to the university, Nykia is playing basketball again and tutoring kids at the YMCA. “A lot of them want to know my story. So I have no problem with telling them, speaking to them about how valuable life is.

Most kids just take life for granted,” she continued, “including me before the heart transplant. You never think about what happens tomorrow. You just wake up and do what you normally do. Now, I’m thanking God every day for waking up again. The doctors said if I would have waited a week, I would be dead. So I tell kids, don’t take life for granted, because it’s too valuable.”

Nykia can’t wait to be back in college, hopefully by the last week of May. Before her heart problems, she had planned to major in child and family studies, but her experience at Saint Thomas Hospital and the Saint Thomas Heart cardiologists have prompted her to rethink her future.

“Being in the hospital a month and a half before the transplant gave me an inside look into the medical field,” she explained. “Before that, I didn’t realize how much physicians can help someone. So I’ve decided to go into biology and then into medicine. I believe my experiences can help other transplant patients. I will become a doctor who knows first hand about transplants. I will be able to share my experiences with other transplant patients.”

Nykia paused thoughtfully, “I’d be able to help others just like at Saint Thomas Hospital, where they helped me.”

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