Davis’ homecoming

For most teenagers, the end of summer is met with groans and complaints about tests and homework. But for Davis Hartsell, returning to school is a welcome change from the six months he’s spent in and out of the hospital in Houston. 

After missing the second half of his sophomore year due to two collapsed lungs and a diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, the Vestavia Hills junior returns to school this fall with a new set of lungs and a new outlook on the future. 

“I’m really excited about getting to go home after being here for so long,” Hartsell said. “I think it’s going to be weird getting back into my old routine, but I’m looking forward to being able to see my friends every day at school, since I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

For the 16-year-old, returning to a normal routine has been a long time coming. Since he was diagnosed with stage IV neuroblastoma at the age of 4, hospitals and health scares have become a regular part of his life. He underwent a bone marrow transplant at 5, and then in the following years, he had two relapse scares that led to invasive bone biopsies in his left leg and right arm. 

In the early spring of 2014, Hartsell was running track at Vestavia Hills High School when he began having back pain and trouble breathing. He went to the doctor, where they realized he had a collapsed lung. 

After undergoing surgery to repair the lung, he left with not one, but two collapsed lungs and a diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which lung tissue thickens, preventing the lungs from contracting and expanding properly. 

The condition, a side effect of the chemotherapy he underwent as a child, worsened over the next two years. By January 2016, Hartsell’s health was so poor that he could no longer attend school. 

At that point, doctors told Hartsell that without a transplant he only had a year to live. He was referred to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where he began the grueling process of physical conditioning and weight gain in order to get on the transplant list. He gained nearly 20 pounds in two months, but was denied by the transplant review board.

On May 5, his last chance for approval, the board finally approved his request. What happened next is something his mother, Sheri Sheffield, said is nothing short of a miracle. 

“We were told to expect to wait four to six months for the perfect donor,” she said. “But we ended up waiting less than two days.”

Hartsell was put on the donor list at 5 p.m. on May 16, and less than 30 hours later on May 17, Sheffield received the news she had been praying about for months. She said she remembers the feeling of disbelief when her hospital-issued pager went off. 

“I thought, it can’t be,” she said. “Initially I thought it was just a test to see if the pager was working. We still just can’t believe the way it all happened.”

The next day, on May 18, Hartsell underwent a double-lung transplant, and exactly two weeks later he walked out of the hospital. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, there have been only 10 lung transplants in the United States for patients ages 11-18 this year. 

Since the transplant, Hartsell has been hard at work doing physical therapy to build up his strength. Hartsell said he’s been excited to see himself get better and stronger.

“At first, after my surgery, I was still getting tired and didn’t feel great, but now it’s amazing how much better I feel and how much more I can do without needing my oxygen tank,” he said. 

Of course, Hartsell’s father, Michael Hartsell, said he’s not surprised at how quickly his son has recovered. He said he has never heard his son complain through any of his health complications. He remembers interviewing with a psychiatrist as part of the donor evaluation process and telling her, “Davis plans to win.”

“There’s never been a question in his mind that he would do anything but beat this,” Michael Hartsell said. 

Now that Hartsell is back home, he’s ready to go back to a regular schedule and finish out both his junior and senior year at Vestavia, something Sheffield said she hadn’t considered when they first moved to Houston. 

“Our hope, then, was that he would be back in time to start his senior year, so the fact that we are done and heading home and that he’s only going to miss the first two weeks of his junior year is incredible,” she said. “The way timing worked out was just so perfect that we know it was God’s plan for Davis.”

Though there’s always a risk for Hartsell’s body to reject his new lungs, Sheffield said he’s been extremely responsible in taking his medication because he wants to be a good steward of the gift he’s been given. Hartsell said if he could talk to his donor’s family, he would tell them what a positive impact the transplant has had on his life. 

“I would say, ‘thank you,’ because they gave up one of their loved one’s lives, so that I could live and enjoy mine,” he said. “I would tell them about all the things I can do now that I couldn’t do before.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to help cover Hartsell’s medical and living expenses while he has been in Houston. It can be found at gofundme.com/m9kjbxgk.