HOUSTON Ally Smith Babineaux, the woman dubbed by People magazine as the Bionic Bride, lost that inauspicious title this week. But the 22-year-old is willing to give up the title, because a new heart has taken its place.
The Texas A&M student first made headlines when doctors at the Texas Heart Institute in the Texas Medical Center installed a Left Ventricular Assist Device or LVAD. She suffered from viral cardiomyopathy. The original hope was that the heart pump would allow her heart to heal, and that she would eventually recover. The device, powered by batteries she carried in a backpack, did allow her to get on with her life and even marry her college sweetheart last year.
The indications for using the pump is a patient facing a terminal situation, and Ally was certainly facing that when we put the pump in two years ago, said famed heart surgeon Dr. O.H. Frazier with the Texas Heart Institute.
Frazier installed the first LVAD in a patient 2003.
To date there have been more than 11,000 of them implanted worldwide, which is a gratifying thing, Frazier said.
Gratifying most of all to Babineaux and her family, because it served as a nearly two-year bridge to the life-saving heart transplant she received this past Tuesday.
And she got the biggest smile on her face and looked at us and gave us the good ole Aggie thumbs up and said I m ready to go, Krista Smith said of her daughter s reaction as she was wheeled into surgery.
Doctors say the transplant went well and that Babineaux s prognosis is good. Now her family praises the miracles of modern medicine and the generosity of an unidentified donor family. Babineaux, meanwhile, hopes to help educate people about the dangers of heart disease in both men and women. It kills more people than all cancers combined.
As for losing the title of Bionic Bride, Babineaux s mom said that was part of the pre-transplant surgery discussion.
That was one of her things. She said, I m not going to be the Bionic Bride anymore. And we said, So what, we ll find a new name for you, said Smith. Her sister says she needs to be the something wife now that she was the Bionic Bride.
A something wife with a new lease on life, which is the only title she, her family and her doctors ever really wanted.
