Two of Hearts: Mother and Son Receive Life-Saving Heart Transplants

Within six years, Marques Cain, a wiry teenage boy with dark round eyes and a shy smile has survived two heart transplants - his own and his mother's.

Marques was only five years old when his mother, Andrea Cain, received a heart transplant at Cleveland Clinic after her own heart failed at age 30. The young nurse and mother was stricken with cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart. Doctors assumed the condition was brought on by a virus that attacks the heart. It would be five years before anyone discovered exactly what had stolen Andrea's heart function -- right as it was about to take her son's.

In May 2005, Marques was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy after suffering shortness of breath and fatigue. Further testing determined that Andrea and Marques suffered from Danon's disease, an extremely rare, dominant, genetic condition passed down from the mother's X chromosome. In its severest form, Danon's results in cardiomyopathy and requires a heart transplant. This disease is so rare that there are only 20 documented cases in the world.

On August 16, 2005, nearly six years after his mother's diagnosis, Marques was placed on the national transplant waiting list. After a four month wait, he received his new heart on December 12, 2005.  "He is doing so well," says Andrea, Marques' mother. "A new heart is such a gift.  My son wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for an organ donor. We can now plan for a future. For the both of us."

You have the power to save lives by becoming a registered organ and tissue donor right now or by saying "yes" when renewing your driver license or state ID at the BMV.