Heart-wrenching again

For the second time in three years, the Friesen family needs a miracle.

Six-year-old Lindsea Friesen of Santa Maria is lying in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center, waiting for a replacement for her severely enlarged heart.

For Susan and Ken Friesen, their daughter's predicament is like the rerun of a bad dream.

It was just three years ago that Lindsea's sister Shivan, then also 6, was in the same hospital, faced with the same desperate need.

Both girls were diagnosed with a severely enlarged heart after contracting a common virus. Neither showed clear signs of illness prior to the sudden onset.

Shivan is nine and healthy now, after a successful transplant.

And while doctors said previously that Shivan's case was not related to a genetic condition, they are now re-examining that possibility, Susan Friesen said. However, her three other children have no heart problems.

UCLA doctors don't know of any other siblings that have both had this condition, Friesen said. She added that heart transplants in children are rare, and that UCLA performs only 20 pediatric heart transplants per year.

Friesen, who home schools Shivan, Alaina, 8, and Lindsea, does not know how long her youngest daughter will have to wait for a new heart. With Shivan, it took three months.

It could be "as soon as probably three to four weeks to several months before finding a donor," said Dr. Quinn Hume, a pediatric intensive care physician at UCLA and one of Lindsea's doctors.

Until then, Lindsea is in the intensive care unit. Her heart is too weak for much more than quiet and rest, Friesen said.

The Friesens are waiting with their daughter and sleeping in the hospital parking lot in their van, since hotels are so expensive near UCLA. Because only adults are allowed to visit the intensive care unit, the two older girls are being cared for by brothers Glenn, 19, and David, 21.

Last time, mother and daughters girls stayed in Los Angeles for eight months while Shivan recovered, and father and sons stayed in Santa Maria. But the family does not want to weather another separation, Susan Friesen said. Recovery for Lindsea could take a year or more, she added.

Thanks to renewed kindness from the past, the family may be reunited. When Shivan was in the hospital, John Sandbrook learned about the Friesens after his son, the vice provost at UCLA, read about them in the newspaper.

Sandbrook, who lives near the hospital, opened his house to the Friesens, whom he'd never met. Now, "He wants us back," Susan Friesen said.

She emphasized how important it is for people to become organ donors. A sticker on a driver's license is not enough, she said, noting that family members must also be aware of the choice. "They might not find your wallet," she said.

Friesen said that doctors have assured her that Lindsea's condition is not contagious.

Staff writer Erin Carlyle can be reached at 739-2218 or by e-mail at ecarlyle@pulitzer.net.

Oct. 11, 2003