Heart Transplant

Heart Transplants and Statistics

When does a person need a heart transplant?

A heart may be irreversibly damaged by long-lasting heart disease or viral infection. People with long-term heart failure, heart muscle disease, or other irreversible heart injury from coronary artery disease and multiple heart attacks that can’t be treated by any other medical or surgical means may be candidates for heart transplants.

When the heart no longer can adequately work and a person is at risk of dying, a heart transplant may be indicated. It involves removing a diseased heart and replacing it with a healthy human heart. Cardiac transplantation is recognized as a proven procedure in appropriately selected patients.

How many people need and receive heart transplants?

· There were 2,154 heart transplants performed in the United States in 2002 and 2,199 in 2001.

· Each year thousands more Americans would benefit from a heart transplant if more donated hearts were available.

· In the United States, about 77 percent of heart transplant patients are male; 74 percent are white; 50 percent are ages 50-64 and 19 percent are ages 35-49.

· In 2002 the one-year survival rate was 86 percent; the three-year survival rate was about 77 percent; and the five-year survival rate was 71 percent.

1st John 4:10

Little Emily ran into the house, crying as though her heart would break.

"What’s wrong, dear?" asked her mother.

"My doll! Billy broke it!" she sobbed.

"How did he break it, Emily?"

"I hit him over the head with it."

Jon 15:3 Greater love hath no man hen his, that he lay down his life fo a friend.

Jon 14 Let not your heart be troubled...

Psalm 53

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

The $100 bill example

A NEW HEART TRANSPLANT

Reading: Ezekiel 36:16-28

INTRODUCTION

[a] When Dr Christian Barnard, the South African surgeon

operated on Philip Blyburg, and gave him a new heart, the

whole world buzzed with this amazing news!

[b] This operation is now common-place! It isn’t news any

more! In fact, they are now in some instances using plastic

hearts!

[c] No longer is the eyebrow raised at the thought of someone

else’s heart beating away inside you.

I remember hearing a distressed woman on the television on

one occasion! Her husband’s life had been saved with a heart

transplant, but all this woman could say was, "He used to

say he loved me with all his heart! But now that can’t be

true any more, because he has someone else’s heart!!"

[d] In fact, in one corps we had a young woman called Isobel.

Isobel was a sort of bounty hunter for hearts, as well as

eyes, kidneys, and all the rest! She used to stop people on

the street, and get them to sign on the dotted line. It’s now

common place to carry donor cards.

POINT 1

[a] They’re not looking for brains yet are they - not that

I think they would want mine!

[b] I know we joke about such Frankenstein type enterprises,

but did you know that experiments have actually been done to

transplant a brain!.

[c] I remember reading about a monkey whose brain was removed

after it’s skull had been carefully dismantled.

The brain was then immediately connected to the blood supply

of another monkey.

This resulted in the fact that although the body of the

monkey was dead, it’s brain was still alive and active.

[d] Theoretically, the brain could have been taken and

placed within the skull of another monkey, transferring the

nature, the abilities, the thoughts, even the memory of one

monkey into the body of another!

[e] I remember finding out about some experiments done in

Russia where the complete heads of animals had been

transplanted onto other animals of a different type - you

know, pigs that would bleat, and sheep that would bark!

[f] One suddenly decides, that maybe science fiction is

coming a little too close for comfort! The science fiction

and impossibilities of yesterday, are in many

instances, the scientific facts of today!!

[g] Is it possible, with modern knowledge, to replace the

HUMAN brain in a new body? Maybe you’ll hear about it in

tonight’s news!

POINT 2

[a] Now before we flew of on a nightmare tangent, we thought

of the first heart transplant! OR WAS IT??

[b] How would you feel if I told you that HEART TRANSPLANTS

were taking place THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO?

[c] Anyone who believes the Bible must believe that, for God

says in Ezekiel 36:26, "A NEW HEART WILL I GIVE YOU."

[d] This is no SECOND HAND HEART, but a RE-CREATED HEART

about which we speak!

This is the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE - AND OF US, saying that