Siblings Zion and Zhania Coleman were born with restrictive cardiomyopathy, which leads to heart failure, and also with sickle-cell anemia, a complicating factor. The wait for new hearts, their mother Demetria said, was “long and scary.”
They both received heart transplants within a few months of each other—which saved their lives—and also made history.
Zion’s operation marked the first time that the hospital’s cardiac surgeons has performed a heart transplant on a child with sickle cell. These days, Zion is playing baseball and Zhania is taking dance and swim lessons, and their mom says that, blessed with two gifts of life, they are “loving and cherishing each moment.”
