Local News in Brief : Orange : Heart-Transplant Infant in Critical Condition

Matthew Matsumiya, the 5 1/2-month-old son of Graham and Cheryl Matsumiya of Orange, was still listed in critical condition Sunday, a day after receiving a new heart at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

The condition is normal for heart transplant recipients, said officials for the hospital, which has performed 21 heart transplant operations on children under 6 months of age in the last five years. Of those, 17 are alive today.

“He’s doing fine; progressing fine,” the baby’s mother, Cheryl Matsumiya said Sunday. “He’ll stay at Loma Linda for three weeks to two months, depending on his progress.”

“He’s real alert, moves around and is a little bit active,” she said. “The doctor says he is happy with the progress and they will watch him real close and everything should go OK.”

Matthew was born prematurely April 22 with cardiomyopathy, a life-threatening heart disease. He had survived a four-month wait--the longest of any candidate in the hospital’s transplant program, said Anita Rockwell, hospital spokesman.

Dr. Leonard Bailey, who performed the surgery, said the donor was a baby in Michigan.

Four other babies are awaiting donated hearts through Loma Linda’s program. As donated organs become available from infants who are pronounced dead, they are selected according to age, weight, blood type and level of severity, Rockwell said.

At a press conference Sunday at the hospital, two desperate parents of heart-diseased children--one as yet unborn--pleaded for heart donors. Daymon Petersen of Salt Lake City said his unborn son has already been diagnosed with an incurable heart disease. “Once he’s born, the time clock starts. You don’t know when it will stop.”