KUALA LUMPUR: What a difference a year makes. Fifteen-year-old Tee Hui Yi is a picture of health and happiness as she marks the first anniversary of her heart transplant surgery.

Clad in a blue skirt and a white top and jacket paired with a pair of white high-heeled shoes, a blue chain and a white slingbag, the teenager was every bit a fashionista as she flashed a confident smile at those present at a news conference organised by the National Heart Institute.

It was certainly a far cry from the depressed and gaunt girl who was forced to call the hospital home as she desperately waited for a heart more than a year ago.

Having gone through the harrowing experience, Tee now offers her moral support to another heart patient -- Winnie Chen, 23.

At the press conference, Tee stepped into the IJN auditorium with Chen by her side and the two were immediately swarmed by press photographers.
"Tee, Winnie please cover your faces so that they cannot take your pictures," said an exasperated Dr Mohamed Ezani Md Taib, IJN's consultant cardiothoracic and transplant surgeon, half jokingly as his pleas for the photographers to take pictures later fell on deaf ears.

Tee told reporters that she had struck up a friendship with Chen, who is IJN's third mechanical heart patient, and hoped to motivate her as she waited for a new heart.

"It would be difficult for her without friends and family. I understand what she is going through," said Tee.

Chen, a mother of a 5-year-old girl, had been suffering from end-stage heart failure and valvular heart disease since 2006.

She was put on the heart transplant waiting list on June 24.

She was fitted with a mechanical heart known as the Paracorporeal Ventricular Assist Device (PVAD) in a five-hour surgery at the IJN on Aug 1.

Tee too had a similar mechanical heart when she was waiting for her transplant.

The mechanical heart supports the left side of Chen's heart and will help keep her condition from getting worse.

"The next six months will be important for Chen as her condition will be monitored closely to see if there is any improvement.

"With the mechanical heart, Chen's heart will have a chance to rest and recover while waiting for a donor heart to come through," said Dr Ezani.

Chen will now have to move around with a 9kg battery which will power her mechanical heart.

The former clerk said she used to read about Tee and the first mechanical heart patient Mohd Fikri Nor Azmi in the newspapers and about how hard it was for them while waiting for their donor hearts.

"I never expected to be in the same shoes," she said..

The youngest in a family of five, Chen said she hoped to get a donor heart soon so that she would be able to take care of her parents.

"At my age, I should be supporting them and not the other way around.

"I know they are sad and heartbroken even though they do not cry," she said, her voice breaking.

Tee was here for her once-in-two months check-up and to attend IJN's Hari Raya gathering.

Tee should have been sitting her Penilaian Menengah Rendah examination this year but she is now in Form Two instead of Form Three as she had missed school for four years due to her heart condition.