It is frustrating sometimes
Being so young when I had my first transplant, it’s a way of life to me. I don’t know anything else really to compare it to. Every once in a while I do find it unfair – like I have to wear a heart guard to play sports just as a precautionary thing, so I have a little bit of protection if I were to get knocked in the chest, because it would knock the wind out of me.

Obviously I do get frustrated, because it is frustrating sometimes. It just seems like something else that I have to carry around that nobody else does. But a lot of times I’ll just go sit in my room and listen to my music and just forget it. Sometimes I’ll just talk it out with mom: I tell her everything. And my friends do try to help, even though they don’t understand completely.

Laura, 14

It just held me back a little
It was difficult, because first grade, going out to recess, I wanted to be the one doing all those little foot races and hanging on the monkey bars and doing all that stuff, and I had to restrain myself in a way, because I knew that, like, “Well, maybe monkey bars aren’t great because they stress where my incision is, and I’ve had that strain before and it’s really uncomfortable…” And just having to, like, act older than I was was difficult.

Laura, 14