Have A Heart - Or Two If You're Jake

Jake Hand keeps his old heart in a bag in his room.

The Christchurch teenager hasn't decided what to do with the defective organ since it was removed from his chest last year and replaced with a donor heart.

Jake was born with multiple heart problems and was not expected to live. Last August, Jake turned 15, got his learner driver licence and had a heart transplant.

With only one working ventricle, Jake had always been tired and out of breath. He seldom attended school, and he hated that. "It was frustrating because every teenage boy wants to be with his friends," he said. "I couldn't get out of bed some days; I couldn't even walk from the car park to class."

After a dozen surgeries, Jake's condition worsened and he was placed on the heart-donor waiting list.

He said family and friends were his biggest support during his recovery, especially his cousin Paris Wesley, 16, who rang him every day in "Hearty Towers", next to Greenlane Hospital in Auckland. "It was a real comfort knowing someone back here was looking out for me but I still beat her to getting a driver's licence."

Mum, Karen Hand, said despite advances in medicine, any congenital heart defect was a lifelong condition.

Jake hopes to be an air traffic controller, but the medication to regulate the new heart may yet prevent him from reaching this goal. On the bright side, his 20-centimetre scar was good for shark-bite stories at the pool, Jake said.

By Beck Eleven - The Press

Photo by Carys Monteath - The Press