An Aiken teen is balancing school with weekly medical appointments in Atlanta as he recovers from a rare multivisceral transplant surgery.
Collin Gibson, 17, received a new heart and liver in January in the first surgery of its kind at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital.
“I went in for just a normal cath,” Collin said. “That’s when I found out I had heart failure.”
Collin was born with a congenital heart defect that was discovered when his mom, Tara, had a routine ultrasound during her pregnancy. The family was living in the Augusta area at the time, but there wasn’t a doctor who could perform the lifesaving surgery Collin would need after birth, she said.
He was born at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, and the family has continued his care in the Atlanta area.
He had a Fontan procedure that according to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s website “can treat many types of single ventricle defects. Single ventricle defects are rare. They occur in about 5 out of every 100,000 births.”
With only a single ventricle working, it makes it hard for the body to get enough oxygen. The procedure reroutes deoxygenated blood directly to the lungs, bypassing the heart. The liver can also fail in people who’ve undergone the Fontan. Tests indicated Collin’s liver was failing in addition to his heart meaning he would need a liver transplant as well.
According to Dr. Fawwaz Shaw, Collin’s congenital cardiothoracic surgeon, pediatric heart-liver transplants are extremely rare with less than 50 performed in the last 30 years.
Several weeks of planning went into the surgery before Collin was even placed on the transplant list. The actual surgery took about 12 hours with the heart being transplanted first.
“The most challenging part was taking out the old heart especially in the case of Collin who had many previous surgeries,” Shaw said.
Collin’s recovery has gone remarkably well with the teen only being in the hospital for about two weeks.
Shaw said that often transplant patients are the sickest of the sick, but Collin was an exception.
“He was in really good physical health. He wasn’t extremely frail before the surgery,” he said.
Collin said he’s feeling good. He heads back to Atlanta on March 9 for a cardiac catheterization to see how well his body is handling the transplant.
Because of his health challenges this year, he’s playing catch up with his online classes. He expects to graduate next year.
Colllin said he’d like to study pediatric cardiology.
“I feel like I could do it. I relate to a lot of kids, and it could be a lot more comforting for them,” he said.
Tara Gibson said she’s tried to make sure he knew what was going on with his medical condition, and about his medications. She said she’s heard from doctors and nurses that some parents attempt to shield their children from medical information, but she felt he needed to know what was going on.
“He will be able to advocate for himself,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
