Nate Draper, the 10-month-old twin born with a deadly heart condition, has improved so much without receiving a new heart that his surprised doctors at UCLA Medical Center plan to release him from the hospital today.
For months, doctors said Nate needed a new heart as soon as possible, probably by the time he walked, when his body would need better circulation.
Though cautioning that the gray-eyed baby could suffer a relapse, his doctors now say they have never witnessed such a dramatic turnaround in a heart patient. They hope to study Nate's heart for clues that may help other patients experience similar reversals.
Nate and his identical twin brother, Nick, were born in their hometown of Phoenix with dilated cardiomyopathy, a rare condition that weakened their hearts and left the sides of their hearts in cross-shaped jumbles. Nick received a transplant in February.
"Nate Draper is breaking all of the rules," said Dr. Mark Plunkett, the UCLA surgeon who has monitored Nate's care since shortly after his birth.
Plunkett recalled that in March, Nate grew weaker, and Plunkett worried that the baby was weeks away from death.
"What we are seeing is close to a miracle," Plunkett said. "There's no explaining it. Whatever problem created the heart failure in the first place, he has found a way to resolve. I don't know what happened. We just don't understand it."
The good news about Nate's heart is tempered, however, by results from a recent neurological exam showing that the baby's brain is not receiving signals from his eyes.
That means Nate might be blind, a development that puzzled his family and doctors because, while he seemed to have difficulty focusing, Nate has appeared to track moving objects and lights. Doctors speculate that if Nate did recently lose his vision, it might return later.
Dr. Stephen Pophal, director of cardiomyopathy at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, called the latest news remarkable.
"I would have to concur that it is an amazing thing," Pophal said. "I don't know if it is a miracle ... but you don't see a turnaround like this."
Pophal said he was most surprised to hear that Nate has been in severe heart failure for almost a year. If such patients don't improve within three months, "you are not going to get better."
From birth, Nate and Nick have struggled to remain alive. Their journey and that of their parents, Mike and Nicole Draper, have been the subject of a series of articles in The Times.
