Goshen teen receives new heart
Posted: 02/13/2012 at 4:00 pm

By: Marlys Weaver-Stoesz
mweaver@etruth.com


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GOSHEN — After two years of waiting, Barrett Younghans of Goshen has a new heart.

The 2011 Goshen High School graduate was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, which literally means heart muscle disease, and, in January 2010 at 17 years old, put on the heart transplant list. The disease weakens the heart’s pumping function and can cause arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death.

Barrett Younghans’ uncle and godfather, Bodie Stegelmann, said that the Younghans received a call from Indiana University Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday and were on the road by 6 a.m.

According to Younghans’ CaringBridge site, which his family updates for other family and friends, Younghans entered surgery at about 2:45 p.m., with a new heart in and beating by about 10 p.m.

“It was an anxious Sunday,” Stegelmann said. “Everybody’s really happy things have gone the way they have.”

Younghans’ CaringBridge site says that he is still a long ways from out of the woods, but Stegelmann said that things seemed to be progressing positively.

Younghans had begun attending Valparaiso University last fall to pursue secondary education history. In September, his heart began to fail, Stegelmann said. He spent a few weeks at Methodist Hospital where doctors put in a ventricular assist device to take over some of the work of Younghans’ heart. He was also moved up to the top of the donor list.

After Younghans’ surgery, he moved back from Valparaiso to his parents’ home in Goshen, Stegelmann said, and began taking a class at Goshen College.

Barrett’s father, Barry Younghans, is the executive director of secondary education and director of transportation for Goshen Community Schools. His mother, Lisa Younghans, is a math teacher at Goshen Middle School.

 
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