St. Charles baby has heart transplant

A St. Charles baby boy got a belated Christmas gift Wednesday: a new heart.

Fintan Schiltz, 3 months old, underwent surgery starting at 10:30 a.m. It finished at about 5:30 p.m.

"It just shows you God is good," said his grateful paternal grandmother, Eileen Schiltz of St. Charles, Wednesday night.

Fintan, the fifth child of Mark and Gina Schiltz, was born Sept. 18 at Delnor-Community Hospital in Geneva weighing in at a healthy 7 pounds, 2 ounces, she said. He seemed fine.

But in the middle of his first night, a nurse noticed he was having trouble breathing. Tests showed he had critical aortic stenosis. His aortic valve was blocked, and the left ventricle, a chamber in the heart that pumps blood, was damaged, causing him to have high blood pressure.

He was flown that night to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

A balloon pump was put in his heart to open the valve, said transplant cardiologist Dr. Jeffrey Gossett. But the ventricle did not recover, so 12 weeks ago he was put on the list to await a heart transplant.

In the meantime, the St. Charles and Geneva community rallied around the family. Workers for the city of Geneva, for which Mark is an electrical department lineman, gave Mark their sick days so he could spend time at the hospital without having to take unpaid leave. Members of their parish, St. Patrick Catholic Church in St. Charles, offered home-cooked meals and gift cards for gasoline for the drives to Chicago, raised money and, most importantly, prayed for Fintan.

Once a week his siblings came to visit. "I see you have my blanket in your bed," said 4-year-old Leo. Sisters Cecelia, 8, Savanna Rose, 6, and Neve Sheri, 2, were on the visits, too, wearing masks to avoid giving their brother any germs.

On Christmas, Cardinal Francis George stopped by Fintan's bedside, praying and meeting with the family for about 15 minutes.

At 11 p.m. that day, the call came from a transplant organization to his doctors: There was a heart.

Wednesday morning a doctor flew out to get the heart while surgeon Dr. Carl Backer started the operation, opening Fintan's chest and getting everything ready to receive the new heart. At 2 p.m. the heart landed at Midway and was taken by helicopter to Children's.

People around the world have been praying for him, thanks to the church and to his relatives' involvement in several Catholic and nondenominational religious movements.

While waiting for his heart, Fintan had to have a ventilator take over his breathing. That meant he had to be fed through tubes. Fintan pulled out his tubes a few times.

"He's real alert. Even with that tube in his mouth, he's smiling," said his grandmother.

The right side of his new heart is a little weak, said Gossett, so Fintan is connected to a machine that pumps his blood through a membrane to remove carbon dioxide from the blood. He expects Fintan will be removed from the machine by Friday.

If all goes perfectly, Fintan could be home in three to four weeks, after being weaned from the ventilator and learning how to eat normally. He will have to take antirejection medication the rest of his life.

Children's does about 10 heart transplants a year, Gossett said. Many people are on Fintan's team, including four nurse-practitioners who specialize in transplants, plus the nurses of the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.

Through all this, the family has learned how big a heart many people have, not forgetting that somebody else's baby had to die before Fintan could get his new heart.

"This has affected so many people," said Eileen. "It's been kind of a gift for Mark and Gina to see how giving people are."