Teen Baseball Player Still Thriving Years After His Unique Kidney Transplant
A 16-year-old kid in Michigan named Sam Heintz played a ton of baseball this summer. This is a big deal because years ago, he face knowing he may never play the game he loved again. He also has a rare kidney disease he was diagnosed with at 5 years old. He was put on the transplant list at 8, and a few months later had the transplant. They usually put the new kidney on the right side of your body. But he’s left-handed, and his mom knew that might make it too risky for him to continue playing baseball. So doctors figured out a way to put his on the opposite side.
“Preferentially, when you get that kidney transplant, it goes into the right side,” explained Cristina Brini, a physician assistant in pediatric nephrology at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. His mom, Alicia, worried that placing the kidney on his right side would expose the new organ to damage when Sam returned to playing baseball. “If you’re left-handed and you have the bat up, you don’t want to be exposed to where all of these balls are coming at you at 100 miles per hour.” So she asked his surgical team if they could swap the sides, and they agreed!
Eight years later he’s thriving and still playing the game he loves. They wanted to share his story to show how kids can go on to live normal lives years later after having such a major surgery.