A woman held her own heart following a transplant procedure and battling cancer, The Sun reports Jan. 16. The woman, known as Penny, was pictured wearing a mask and gloves holding her old heart that her friend -- Kelsey -- posted online.
Photo can be seen here.
It's not known where the woman is from, but she suffered heart failure and cancer before having the procedure done.
“[Penny] is holding her own heart. She has survived cancer and crippling heart failure and never lost hope,” Kelsey said of her friend holding her own heart. "She's my hero."
Although doctors allowed Penny to hold her own heart after the transplant, there were strict policies enforced that didn't allow her to take the organ home with her.
Kelsey wrote, “She wanted to keep it but they wouldn’t let her! It had to be cremated but she kept the ashes.”
Penny is taking immunosuppressants to keep her body from rejecting her new heart.
Recovery time for heart transplant patients is now a few weeks in the hospital in addition to several months afterwards.
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