Cathedral student ready for Christmas after transplant

In 1944 a public school music teacher, Donald Gardner, penned the song, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." Fast forward 64 years and a 10 year-old sang, "All I want for Christmas is a new heart." and she got one!

St. Louis, MO (St. Louis Review) - This month Cathedral Basilica School student Macy Stevens got a Christmas present of a lifetime.

The 10-year-old received a new heart at St. Louis Children's Hospital Dec. 2. The youngster also managed to steal the hearts of those around her during her stay in St. Louis.

She and her family were to have returned home to Omaha, Neb., this week. Macy had prayed to God for a new heart, asking, "Please let it be here for Christmas" so she could go home. And that's where she was headed when the Review went to press Wednesday, Dec. 17.

Worn out from the transplant operation, Macy visibly perked up last week as she talked about going home. Hovering nearby were her beaming parents, Karen and Jordan Stevens.

Flashing a smile, Macy described the reunion she intended to have with her two younger siblings, Sophie, 5, and Mia, 1. "I'm going to scream and yell and shout and be so happy. I'm going to give them a big hug," said their big sister.

Her parents jokingly teased Macy that with her new heart she was now the youngest one in the family, and they would have to celebrate two birthdays for her. But Macy would have none of that. She bragged that one day she would be strong enough to pick up her baby sister.

Noting she was so "thankful for getting a heart and having a place to stay," Macy paused before adding quietly, "and for still being here," alive.

For the past five months the Stevenses had been living at the Ronald McDonald House in the Central West End. The charitable organization's mission, in part, is to provide a home-away-from-home for seriously ill children and their families. Macy was there waiting for a heart to become available. Born with a congenital heart defect, the grade-schooler knew her time was running short.

Even so, she was determined to live life to the fullest. That's why it meant so much to her to go to Cathedral School.

She and her mom discovered the Catholic grade school in the Central West End walking the neighborhood this past August after they had first arrived in the city. Members of St. Robert Bellarmine in Omaha, the Stevens family originally had planned to home school Macy here. The fifth-grader, however, had other ideas. She had been attending public school back home and did not want to be away from her peers. So Macy and her mom met with school officials and toured the school building next to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. They fell in love with it and the people there.

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The feeling was mutual, according to principal Michel Wendell.

"What was not to love about her?" said Wendell of the pint- sized youth who showed such bravery as she faced the possibility of dying if a match was not found in time.

Cathedral School had siblings of transplant patients at Ronald McDonald House attend class there before, but Macy was its first ever heart-transplant student. Faculty and staff did everything they could to prepare for her coming, including learning how to use a heart defibrillator. The 10-year-old wore the 8-pound, life-saving device on her back every day at school.

Her fellow fifth-graders, a small class of eight other students, gave her the gift of treating her as if nothing was wrong. "They gave her a sense of normalcy," which was just what she needed, the principal said.

Macy agreed. The school, she said, "gave me something to look forward to and kept my mind off of things."

Choking up, Wendell said, "For us it was a blessing, a privilege and an opportunity to have Macy with us. I think we were the heart and face of God." Macy's presence, she added, "was a mutual gift."

Noted Wendell, "For her to be in a Catholic school environment where faith is the center of everything we are, that we could be there for her at this time during Thanksgiving and the season of Advent, was just amazing."

Wendell also praised Macy's parents and grandmother, who served as visible examples to the student body of what it meant to place trust in God in both good and bad times.

That trust was tested on several occasions, including in late October, when the Stevenses got a call a match had been found. Macy was prepared for the transplant only to be told at the last moment that muscle damage was discovered so the doctors canceled the procedure. Also, during the Stevenses' stay at Ronald McDonald House, two children Macy knew who were awaiting transplants like her had died.

Just before Thanksgiving, the tips of Macy's fingers and nose started turning blue, a sign her heart was deteriorating. Macy's spirits plummeted. The doctors gave the family permission to take her home a week before Thanksgiving to help lift her spirits. She came back to school half days upon her return.

Finally the second call came that a match had been found. This time the operation took place, and it was a success. The youngster will be on medicine the rest of her life, but she now has a future to which she can look forward.

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Her mom and dad wanted to thank everyone who had helped their daughter while she was in St. Louis. Among those they cited was Aggie Ceriotti of St. Ambrose Parish, who they said acted as Macy's personal "guardian angel."

They also mentioned such local organizations as the St. Louis Cardinals and individual team members who took a personal interest in Macy. In addition, they thanked the staff at Children's Hospital, Ronald McDonald House and Cathedral Basilica School, in particular Wendell, administrative assistant Nicky McCall and Macy's fifth-grade teacher Mary Beth Hasemeier.

The Stevenses now call St. Louis home, too, and promised to return yearly, if not more. They have made lifelong friends here, they said.

Macy had acknowledged as much just before nodding off. Though she was going home for Christmas with her new heart, she said a part of it would always remain here.

"It's a wonderful Christmas story," Cathedral School principal Wendell noted.

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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the St. Louis Review(www.stlouisreview.com), official newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Mo.