Baby Boy With Transplanted Heart Leaves Loma Linda Medical Center

Heart transplant patient Robbie Shinn, born June 28, left Loma Linda University Medical Center with his parents Tuesday, who took him to a nearby apartment, where they will live for at least four months.

“He cried a little because he was hungry,” said Robbie’s father, Charles, a Westminster police officer. “But we’re out of the heat and Renee is feeding Robbie. He’s doing fine now.”

Shinn said the afternoon was a bit hectic with all the television cameras and news reporters waiting as they left the hospital. It was a scorching 108 degrees outside.

Robbie, born with a malformed heart that could not circulate oxygenated blood properly, received a heart transplant July 9 at the San Bernardino County hospital.

For the first four months to a year, Robbie and his parents must live near the hospital. The parents have both completed CPR courses and have been extensively briefed by nurses on how to administer the medication that Robbie needs several times a day.

Friends and relatives of the Shinns, including their 10-year-old son, Vincent, joined them at their new Loma Linda apartment when they brought Robbie home Tuesday. While they are living in Loma Linda, the Shinns have made their Midway City home in Orange County available to members of their church who are visiting Southern California. The rent for their new apartment is being paid by the $7,000 raised so far to help pay Robbie’s medical expenses.

“If it wasn’t for the fund we probably would have had to sell our house in Orange County,” Shinn said. He added that the hospital requires heart transplant recipients to live within 30 miles of the medical center because they have to undergo constant testing and in event of an emergency.

Robbie stayed at Children’s Hospital of Orange County before a donor was found with B-positive type blood. Most babies with his condition live for about three weeks with medical care, but almost half die before a donor is found, according to Dr. Sudeep Singh at Children’s Hospital.

Robbie had hypoplastic left heart syndrome. In a normal infant’s heart, blood is pumped through the two chambers on the right side of the heart, then to the lungs and back to the left side of the heart where the oxygen-rich blood is sent by the lower chamber, the ventricle, to the body.

In Robbie’s heart, one of his four chambers had shriveled and the left ventricle did not work. A small artery provided the outlet for the blood from the left side of the heart, where it traveled back to the right side and out to the body.

About one in 6,000 babies are born with that condition, but Robbie’s blood type made finding a donor difficult. Only 8.5% of the population has B-positive blood.

Fortunately, a donor was found at 4 p.m. July 9. The Shinns did not know the name of the donor nor did they have any other details except that the infant had the same blood and tissue type, the same size heart and had died without suffering heart damage.

Hospital officials would only say at the time that the young donor had died of sudden infant death syndrome, a mysterious killer. The Shinns are preparing a letter to the donor’s parents thanking them for their decision to donate their child’s heart.

“They gave a life to another child. Two live on in one,” Shinn said. “There is such a need for transplant donors and many times people just don’t know that there is a need.”

“This whole experience has brought us closer as a family and closer to the Lord and the miracles he works,” he added.

Robbie’s surgery was the 142nd such operation performed at the hospital on an infant under the age of 6 months since 1985. About 82% of those babies have survived, according to hospital spokesman Dick Schaefer.

The operation took 4 1/2 hours and left Robbie in critical but stable condition.

To help with rent costs, the Westminster Police Officers Assn. has started a donation fund. Contributions can be made by calling (714) 892-6373.