TEENAGER Gavin Seward was woken around midnight by a phone call that would alter the course of his life.
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Gavin, 17, was to learn that his failing heart, ravaged by the genetic muscle-wasting Danon disease, was to be replaced with a donor organ.
It was almost a year to the day since his elder brother Rowan died of heart failure from the same disease.
After Rowan’s death last year, the family vowed to fight for Gavin’s transplant.
So when Gavin was tested to see if his heart was ready for a transplant he told the doctor that unlike his brother, who was tested and rejected for a transplant four times, he was only going to be tested once.
‘‘I had been through it with Rowan heaps of times and I knew what was coming – by the first time I was sick of it,’’ Gavin said.
‘‘I said ‘I’m not coming back for a second go so make your decision, and make it right’.’’
Gavin and his mother Fiona were airlifted to Melbourne at 3am where his operation took place four hours later.
Gavin said he wasn’t anxious about the operation and afterwards was only focused on his recovery.
‘‘I knew it had to happen – I was like ‘let’s go do this’.’’
He woke from an induced coma almost three days later and the family faced a nervous wait to see if the donor heart could beat on its own.
After a four-hour transplant operation, 13 days in hospital, almost three months living in Melbourne, and now monthly biopsies on his new heart to check that everything is running as it should be, Gavin’s health is on the up.
With the nickname of his brother ‘‘Row’’ etched in ink on his wrist, Gavin now gets to discover life for the both of them.
He has run in a fun run, plans to join a basketball team at his school Newstead College, and hopes to one day compete in the Australian Transplant Games.
A new and vibrant energy is evident in the teenager as he attempts things his bad heart prevented him doing.
‘‘All of a sudden everything opens up to you,’’ Gavin said.
‘‘You have no idea what you want to do and you have no idea where you want to go because you haven’t thought about it before.
‘‘The fun run was good because I achieved something. I know that I can do these things now.’’
An examination of Gavin’s old heart revealed that he would not have lived out the rest of this year.
Gavin’s mother Fiona and her partner Jodie Beveridge cannot thank the Longford and wider Launceston community enough for the financial and emotional support they received for Rowan and Gavin.
‘‘We want to say a huge thankyou to everyone,’’ Ms Beveridge said.
‘‘The Longford community, the Longford Fire Brigade, the police, the football club, Kylie Smith, all the people who came along to the Heart of Hope fund-raiser. It all made Gavin’s journey so much easier having all that support.’’
Ms Beveridge said the transplant phone call came days before the anniversary of Rowan’s death.
‘‘Sometimes we wondered whether Rowan was looking after Gav, making sure he did get through it,’’ she said.
To become a donor, visit www.donatelife.gov.au or phone DonateLife Tasmania on 62702209.