A stranger’s gift made this Christmas very special for a grateful Bronx woman.
Angelica Sanchez, 22, will open her holiday presents just nine months after a life-saving heart transplant ended her daunting three-year wait for a donor. She heads into 2023 with a bright future, a mission of encouraging others to share their organs — and a lasting debt to the person whose organ beats in her chest.
“I know for the holiday season I really won’t be thinking of myself,” said Sanchez. “I’ll have my donor family and my donor in mind, not me.”
The young woman’s long road to recovery was no joyride aboard Santa’s sleigh: She was diagnosed at age 4 with anaplastic large cell lymphoma before undergoing chemotherapy that put her condition in remission for 14 years.
Things took a turn for the worse four years ago, when Sanchez was diagnosed with heart failure — likely the result of her childhood chemo, according to doctors. At age 19, she underwent surgery to implant a left ventricular assist device (LVAC), a battery-operated pump to keep her blood flowing.
But the LVAC left her without much energy, and Sanchez spent much of her time just resting at home as it became clear she needed a transplant.
The teen soon became involved with LiveOnNY, the organ procurement group, and began sharing her story in an effort to encourage potential donors while keeping her cellphone close and waiting anxiously for a call about her own transplant.
“That’s where I got the knowledge of what they really do,” she said of LiveOnNY. “I started to tell my story and help encourage others to become organ donors.”
She landed on the wait list for a new heart on March 27, 2019, before receiving her new organ almost exactly three years later.
Sanchez, who suffered complications from the LVAC procedure, recalled her worries about the transplant surgery before finally deciding to go all in.
“I went back and forth a lot with myself,” she said. “At one point, I didn’t want to get it. I had fears about the hospital and the operation. But I kept telling myself if the opportunity comes, take it. And I did have the support from my family helping me.
“They gave me the strength, the faith, that I would be in good hands with the doctors.”
When she came out of the surgery, Sanchez recalled the amazing feeling of a healthy new heart beating in her chest.
“I just felt so strong, the pounding of the heart,” she said. “… I’m going into this new year with a new heart of mine. It’s like a fresh new beginning, a whole new year with a new heart. I feel amazing, so great.”
When Sanchez gathers to open presents Sunday with her mother, sister, brother and young niece, she’ll be reflecting on the donor who provided the greatest gift of her life.
She had hoped to connect with the donor’s mom after the surgery, and the two finally shared letters and photographs in September. Her Christmas day thoughts, said Sanchez, will be with that mother and her two other daughters.
“I’m really thinking about them, not me,” she said.
