PORT ANGELES — When the sixth-grade class at Dry Creek Elementary school graduates Wednesday, heart transplant survivor Haille Alley Jackson won’t be with them.
Her absence is, in a way, a victory.
“She will be in surgery,” said her grandmother, Kathleen Anding, but it will not be heart surgery.
“It’s normal kid stuff,” she said.
For some time, her granddaughter was on the verge of death and was not expected to survive massive heart ailments.
Now, she is going to Children’s Hospital in Seattle for a routine out-patient procedure to alleviate sinus allergy problems.
Kathleen and Don Anding of Port Angeles have raised Haille, whose last name refers to her father, Anthony Lee Jackson, her grandmother said.
The active 12-year-old rides her bike, swims, plays with the family dogs, hangs out with the neighbor’s horses and has revealed a strong talent in art.
She is thinking about what she wants to be when she grows up.
“I want to be an artist or a chef or a pilot,” Haille said, toying with some grass while sitting in her front yard in West Port Angeles.
“I think she’s going to be a cartoonist or something,” said Don Anding, her grandfather.
Haille displayed a collection of drawings — a horse head, a beach scene with seals, and others that show an interest in animals and natural settings.
Ten years ago, the Andings took 2-year-old Haille to the doctor for breathing problems.
An MRI revealed a heart almost double the size of what it should be and tumors on the side, filling her chest cavity and collapsing her left lung.
Doctors said she needed surgery or a transplant and she came close to death twice.
Her grandparents didn’t think she would survive the ordeal.
Then a tragedy in Arizona in which a 2-year-old boy died became a chance for life for Haille.
Doctors transplanted the boy’s heart to replace Haille’s failing one.
Haille underwent the heart transplant March 16, 2002, after being placed on the national heart transplant list a few days earlier.
Haille said she has some memories of her recovery but tries not to think about it because of the bad parts.
She will continue taking anti-rejection medications for the rest of her life and have yearly heart biopsies to make sure she is not rejecting her heart.
“I know it’s for my own good, but sometimes I don’t really want to be there,” Haille said of the hospital.
With a knowing twinkle in his eye, her grandfather said that she was excited about it until she found out that she won’t be staying the night this time.
“She’s spent so much time there, it’s home away from home for her,” he said.
She’s also heading to summer camp for a week this summer.
Stanley Stamm Summer Camp, affiliated with Children’s Hospital in Seattle, has everything Haille needs — just in case — to give Haille a classic summer camp experience with swimming, boating, fishing, horseback riding, arts and crafts, music and archery.
Today, she is academically on track with her peers and is excited to start middle school.
“I heard it is really fun,” Haille said.
One of the best parts of middle school is having different teachers and classrooms for each class, she said.
Child heart transplant recipients don’t have the kind of long-term prognosis her grandparents would prefer, so when a 19-year-old Port Angeles man who had a heart transplant as an infant came into Rite-Aid, where Kathleen Anding works, it gave her hope that Haille has a future, she said.
“I don’t even like thinking about it. We’re taking it one day at a time,” she said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsula
dailynews.com.
