IN THEIR DARKNESS, A LIGHT IN AUGUST.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
``It was like Maddie was telling me, 'Mom, you need to be getting on with your life. You need something to be happy about.' '' Andrea Baynes.August is their worst month. Maddie died on Aug. 14 last year - one week shy of her second birthday, and one year after the new heart that was supposed to give her a long life failed. There was nothing for Andrea Baynes, her husband, Ken, or their 6-year-old son, Brandon, to smile or be happy about in August. Maddie, the little fighter with the new heart - waiting for her mom (1) (Messaging-Oriented Middleware) See messaging middleware. (2) (Microsoft Operations Manager) Software that monitors and captures system and application events throughout the network. , Andrea, to get a new heart, too - was gone. In a few days, the three would visit her again at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth and tell her how much they missed her, and that nothing had changed. Mom still had the defibrillator defibrillator, device that delivers an electrical shock to the heart in order to stop certain forms of rapid heart rhythm disturbances (arrhythmias). The shock changes a fibrillation to an organized rhythm or changes a very rapid and ineffective cardiac rhythm to a implanted im·plant v. im·plant·ed, im·plant·ing, im·plants v.tr. 1. To set in firmly, as into the ground: implant fence posts. 2. in her chest to keep her sick heart functioning. She was still waiting for her new heart. No, there was nothing to smile about in August, until the phone rang in the Baynes' Simi Valley Simi Valley (sē`mē, sĭm`ē), city (1990 pop. 100,217), Ventura co., SW Calif. in an oil, fruit, and farm region; laid out 1887, inc. 1969. home a few weeks ago. It was Linda Kessler, a heart transplant heart transplant Procedure to remove a diseased heart and replace it with a healthy one from a legally dead donor. The first was performed in 1967 by Christiaan Barnard. coordinator at UCLA Medical Center UCLA Medical Center is a hospital located on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California. It is rated as one of the top three hospitals in the United States and is the top hospital on the West Coast according to US News & World Report. , telling Andrea to pack her bags and get to the hospital as quickly as she could. A heart had been found for her. It was from a 39-year-old woman from Fontana. That was all she could be told. ``I'm so glad it was me who placed the call because I know how sensitive this is to their family,'' said Kessler, who was the coordinator who evaluated both Maddie and Andrea in 2002 when they learned they would both need heart transplants to live. Doctors believe that a virus enlarged Andrea's heart during her pregnancy with Maddie, causing cardiomyopathy Cardiomyopathy Definition Cardiomyopathy is a chronic disease of the heart muscle (myocardium), in which the muscle is abnormally enlarged, thickened, and/or stiffened. - heart failure - in both of them. It was the hospital staff's first mother-daughter heart transplant. Maddie's new heart had come in first, from a little girl in Oregon who had died. When it failed after a year, the whole staff was shocked, Kessler said. ``We knew the family would be on pins and needles pins and needles pl.n. A tingling sensation felt in a part of the body numbed from lack of circulation. Idiom: on pins and needles In a state of tense anticipation. now because of what happened to Maddie, but we were also so excited that Andrea was having this chance to go on and raise her son.'' At 4 a.m. on Aug. 5, Andrea was wheeled into an operating room operating room n. Abbr. OR A room equipped for performing surgical operations. at UCLA Medical Center. ``I tried to be as strong as Maddie was going into surgery,'' she says. ``She never cried, and I was going to follow her example.'' The heart transplant operation lasted 12 hours. Surgeons took out a sick, leaky leak·y adj. leak·i·er, leak·i·est Permitting leaks or leakage: a leaky roof; a leaky defense system. Adj. 1. heart that was 2 1/2 times the size of a normal heart, replacing it with a healthy one. About 10 days later, Andrea was released from the hospital with a lot of people cheering her on. Before she went home, the family had one stop to make. ``We had to tell Maddie,'' Andrea said. So, on an August day, a day when Andrea Baynes thought she would be kneeling at her baby daughter's grave crying tears of sadness on the first anniversary of her death, she was also crying tears of joy. Because there isn't a shred of doubt in her mind that Maddie wanted her mom to have something special to smile about this August. ``She knew I would be so sad on the anniversary of her death, and on her birthday Monday,'' Andrea said. ``She was giving me something to smile about, too - letting me know she knew I was still watching out for her, still loved her very much. ``It was like Maddie was telling me, 'Mom, you need to be getting on with your life. You need something to be happy about.' '' Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Maddie Baynes, nearly 2, smiles with her mother, father and older brother in happier times. The young heart transplant patient died last August, but a year later, her mother, Andrea, got a new heart of her own. (2 -- color) ``I tried to be as strong as Maddie was going into surgery,'' says Andrea Baynes of her daughter, who died last August. ``She never cried, and I was going to follow her example.'' Evan Yee/Staff Photographer |
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