Upper Providence 8-Year-Old Girl Awaits Donor for Heart Transplant

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Emma Tipping, 8, a third-grade student at Rose Tree Elementary School, is like most other little girls her age, writes Peg DeGrassa for Delaware County News Network.

But life changed for Emma three years ago when she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. The condition weakens heart muscles which can no longer pump blood effectively, leading to heart failure.

About two months ago, the need for a heart transplant donor became urgent when Emma suffered heart failure.

She’s been placed as a priority on the waiting list of the United Network of Organ Sharing, where 2,000 children wait for organs.

The wait for a new heart can often take long.

Currently unable to work because of her circumstances, Emma’s mom, Brittany Gardner, is struggling to stretch her limited income to buy gas, parking and food or train tickets to get to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where Emma’s been admitted.

“I decided to make our desperate situation pubic so that people can see the other side of organ donation – the critically sick children who are waiting for donors. Day after day, we wait for that phone to ring, hoping it’s ‘that’ call. We never, ever stop hoping.”

Read more about Emma here.

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