+
More

She had heart failure at 10 years old. Here's why that's just the start of her story.

True
LiveOnNY Good-Hearted

Shelby Caban cherishes every moment of her life because she knows how easily she could have lost it.

Shortly after her 10th birthday, she was diagnosed with Restrictive Cardiomyopathy, meaning that the ventricles of her heart were too rigid to expand which made it difficult for her heart to pump blood. While some people who have this disease experience few to no symptoms, Shelby's case was so severe, it put her into end stage heart failure.

Framed pictures of Shelby (left) and her brother (right). Photo via Upworthy.


Even though she was just a child, when the doctors sat her down and explained her diagnosis, she understood how serious it was.

"I felt very sick, so the situation was very real to me even at such a young age," writes Shelby in an email.

She needed a heart transplant, but her condition was so dire, she wasn't allowed to wait for it in the comfort of her own home.

So Shelby's parents moved her into a room at the hospital which became her bedroom for the next 45 days.

In that room, she had nothing to do but wait, which brought up so many different emotions. While she was certainly scared, she never stopped being hopeful that a heart would eventually come to her — though that thought came with even more complicated feelings.

"I always thought about what my life would be like with someone else’s heart inside of me," writes Shelby. "Especially, knowing it would most likely be someone young. It made me sad that someone’s tragedy would ultimately be my blessing."

Finally, in early 2004, the Caban family got the news they'd been hoping for — Shelby had a heart coming to her.

The night she found out, Shelby just started crying uncontrollably. She was overwhelmed with relief, anxiety, and joy, but there were also pangs of grief for the 9-year-old girl whose heart she was going to receive.

Photo via Shelby Caban.

Shelby's transplant operation lasted somewhere between six to eight hours. Afterwards, she had to spend a couple weeks in the hospital, then another five months at home recuperating. She couldn't go outside during that time because the anti-rejection medications she was on suppressed her immune system, making her highly susceptible to infections.

After those months at home, when she was finally allowed to venture out, she initially had to wear a mask as an extra precaution. On top of all this, she was taking 32 pills a day, and was told she'd be on them for life. Needless to say, it was a huge life adjustment.

"You’d think receiving a heart is simple — get the heart, and move on with your life," remarks Shelby. "It’s not."

Shelby will always live a somewhat different life because of her heart transplant, but it's all worth it for her because she's still living it.

Today, she's training to become a Physician's Assistant and is in her last year of a Masters program. Her goal is to one day work in pediatrics and help other children get healthy. Getting to be on the other side of the patient's bed has been an amazing experience for her so far, and she's excited to see what lies ahead.

Photo via Shelby Caban.

However, not a day goes by that she doesn't think about the little girl who gave her a second chance at life.

"I have her picture framed right by my bed in my bedroom," she writes.

Shelby was able to speak to the girl's family about a year after her surgery, and thank them for the incredible gift they helped give her. And two years ago, she actually reconnected with the girl's sister, which has been very meaningful.

"They are incredible people, and being in contact with them makes me feel even closer to the little girl whose heart I now share."

Shelby wishes she could give the girl who saved her life a big hug and say 'thank you' over and over, although she knows that would never be enough to express how grateful she is.

What she can do, however, is tell her story to inspire others to become organ donors so that many more lives can be saved.

Photo via Shelby Caban.

For those who are on the fence about it, she stresses the importance of reading up on organ donation to help dispel any concerns they might have. There are lots of myths surrounding the process, including that you have to be in perfect health to be a donor. Rather than just believing what you've heard, Shelby wants everyone to take it upon themselves to get informed and make an educated decision.

"I had a heart transplant, I had cancer, AND I am also an organ donor," she writes.

On average, 20 people die everyday while waiting for an organ. However, just one organ donor can save up to eight lives like Shelby's. And donors aren't just saving lives of recipients — their donation has a huge impact on entire families as well.

Imagine, just by checking a box, you could give a future back to someone who might not have one otherwise. So what are you waiting for?

Learn more about organ donation at LiveOnNY.org

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less
@Steve_Perrault/Twitter

Some moments never get old.

On November 19, 1999, a man named John Carpenter made game show history and quite possibly gave us all the greatest game show moment of all time.

Carpenter was a contestant on the very first season of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” shot in America. Hosted by the late Regis Philbin, the quiz show featured three "lifeline" options to help them with difficult questions, the most popular being able to “Phone-a-Friend.”

Carpenter had impressively not used a single lifeline for any of his questions. That is, until question 15. The million-dollar question, to be exact.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less