Lindsey Bingham, the 8-year-old Eastern Oregon girl awaiting a heart transplant, has been moved from the cardiovascular intensive care unit to the cardiovascular floor of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. As of Monday, Lindsey has been on the heart transplant list for 40 days, and is being kept alive by an external artificial heart, known as the Berlin heart.
She has made significant progress over the past two weeks, allowing doctors to take her off a ventilator and her intravenous medications. That allowed her to move to a standard hospital room, with more room for her parents, Jason and Stacy Bingham, of North Powder, and her four siblings.
Her older sister, Sierra, 12, had a heart and transplant six years ago, and their other three siblings may also need heart transplants some day. The average wait for a heart transplant for someone Lindsey's age is 77 days, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
Meanwhile, Gabriel Lawson, the 11-year Bend boy who received a donor heart earlier this month, has been released from the hospital and is staying in Palo Alto so doctors can monitor his progress. According to his family's blog, his third biopsy showed no signs of organ rejection.
The family expects that Gabriel may be able to return home in October or November if everything goes well.
