Parents of donor and 5-month-old recipient meet in Alabama after heart transplant

In this Wednesday, April 6, 2016, photo, Davis Boswell looks up while Holley Perry holds him at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, Ala. Davis received a heart transplant from Perry's son, John Clarke Perry.
In this Wednesday, April 6, 2016, photo, Davis Boswell looks up while Holley Perry holds him at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, Ala. Davis received a heart transplant from Perry's son, John Clarke Perry.

OPELIKA, Ala. - Emotions, adrenaline and uneasiness abounded as Jonathan and Holley Perry traveled from Monroe, La., to east Alabama to meet Tucker, Amanda and Davis Boswell for the first time.

"It was like going on a first date," Jonathan Perry laughed. "If you really think about what we were going to do, you still can't even really fathom that."

The Perrys lost their 6-month-old son John Clarke to abnormal vessel malformation on Nov. 30, 2015. They made the decision to donate their child's organs and, on the same day John Clarke took his last breath, his heart saved the life of the Boswells' 5-month-old son, Davis, who had spent 115 days awaiting transplant.

Once they saw each other in person for the first time Tuesday evening, the families said all nervousness subsided.

"It was a good first date. There were no awkward moments," Tucker Boswell smiled.

"I think it's just another testament about what God has done through this. How He's orchestrated this story all along, and then how we would just meet and it would be so easy. We really felt like we had known them for a long time and that we were just going to dinner with friends like we would do here. That's not on accident. God planned it that way," said Amanda Boswell.

The families met at the East Alabama Medical Center Chapel before sharing their story at a ceremony hosted by the hospital Wednesday aimed at inspiring community members to become organ donors.

"Both families shared with me that they both knew they wanted to meet one day, but they weren't sure how to go about it. I believe with divine intervention and the help of EAMC, we are here today," said Lisa Harmon, who supervises the hospital's Organ Donor Council.

Jonathan Perry and Amanda Boswell took the stage one at a time to tell their child's story, and to explain how organ donation changed each of their lives.

John Clarke Perry was born perfectly healthy with his twin sister Ella in Monroe, La., on May 5, 2015. At nearly 6 months of age, he began running a temperature and wound up in a hospital.

Doctors struggled to determine what was wrong. After hours of tests, medical professionals were able to figure out that he was suffering from bleeding in his brain.

"A friend of mine is a radiologist, and they said they didn't even understand how he was alive to begin with. It was the worst bleed they had ever seen," Perry said. "They took him for surgery and prepared us for the very worst."

John Clarke underwent two emergency surgeries to stop the bleeding, on Nov. 24 and Nov. 25. Two days later, the Perrys received the devastating news that the bleeding would only continue due to a condition known as abnormal vessel malformation.

"I said, 'Holley, I want a full life. I don't want a half-life,'" Perry said. "We started talking. The doctors brought up organ donation."

Holley Perry was adamant that, if she was going to donate her child's organs, she wanted someone to benefit from his heart.

"She said, 'I really want a heart. If I'm going to do this, I want a heart,'" Perry recalled. "The organ donation lady looked at me and she said, 'Look, I'm going to be honest with you. Six-month-old babies don't need hearts.

"Holley's a little stubborn. She said, 'Can you just go look?' So the woman came back and she said, 'There is an opportunity for some organs.' I said, 'What about a heart?' She said, 'Yeah, maybe, but I don't want to push you. There's a lot that can go wrong; the heart has to match up.' I said, 'We're going to do it. We're going to give it to them.'"

Hundreds of miles away, Davis Boswell was in the fight of his life.

Born on June 30, 2015, in Opelika, Davis' health issues began when he became feverish just two days after birth. Initially diagnosed with meningitis, Davis was placed on a steady regimen of antibiotics until he abruptly stopped eating. Davis went into heart failure and was airlifted to Children's of Alabama hospital in Birmingham on July 9.

Doctors determined Davis was suffering from enterovirus, which interfered with the way his left ventricle pumped blood.

"We were given two options," Amanda Boswell said in an interview last July. ". A miracle that the left side of his heart would just start working, or a Berlin heart."

"(The doctor) said, 'We want to try something very experimental. There's a one in three chance it will work, but we want to give it a try with Davis.' He didn't tell us at the time, and I say that's God's grace, that Davis would be the youngest in the United States to be on a Berlin heart. But we decided to do it," Amanda Boswell said Wednesday.

On July 17, Davis underwent surgery and became the youngest child in the United States and one of the youngest people in the world to receive a Berlin heart, a device approved by the FDA in 2011 to work as a temporary bridge until a donor heart becomes available.

"After 115 days of waiting, Davis received John Clarke's heart," said Amanda Boswell. "On Jan. 8, after spending his entire life in the hospital, he was discharged from Children's. Then on January 28, we got to bring him home. As you can see, he's doing great and he's healthy, and he's making progress every single day."

The relationship between the Boswells and the Perrys was fostered by events that occurred on Nov. 30, 2015. The families would make contact for the first time in December.

Jonathan Perry said he received a strange email from a friend one night, in which his friend claimed to have found John Clarke's transplant recipient: a child in Alabama. Perry located Amanda Boswell through Facebook.

Holley Perry and Amanda Boswell began texting one another in December. They spoke over the phone for the first time two weeks ago, and the families were brought together face-to-face Tuesday.

"I just ask that, if you're thinking about organ donation, don't fall into the trap of 'Why did my son or loved one, why did they have to pass away to save this other person's life?' Many of us would have never met the Boswells. Our doctor actually told us, he said, 'Whatever you do, if you never listen to anything I say, never meet the family. Just know that you saved a life and never meet them.'

"Holley and I are social people. We want to meet everyone, especially the one who our son helped save their life," said Jonathan Perry.

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