Back in circulation

It has been eight years since doctors told Steven Sabb that his heart was too big. They were not speaking metaphorically.

The deacon at True Gospel Tabernacle Church, 16th and Mifflin, was told that he had dilated cardiomyopathy, the most common form of heart disease.

The average human heart is about the size of a fist. Sabb’s was about double that size.

At the time of his diagnosis, the deacon’s doctors gave him seven years to live if a donor couldn’t be found.

Sabb’s window of opportunity would close quickly due to his blood type, AB negative. The rarest blood type, it represents only .6 percent of the population.

But on June 29, 2003, Sabb received a new heart.

One year and a miraculous recovery later (doctors told him he could spend up to two months in the hospital, but he was out in nine days), Sabb has made it a mission to help others through his experience.

He has returned to ministering to his congregation and recently published a short book about his ordeal and spiritual journey titled The Seven-Year Battle of Steven H. Sabb (iUniverse, Inc., $9.95).

Sabb noted that he is more active now than he has been in almost a decade.

"Things have gotten back together faster," he said. "I’m doing more now than I could ever do — hiking, playing basketball, chasing around my 2-year-old grandson."

Sabb offers hope for others waiting for a life-saving procedure. He talks to patients on the transplant list at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and also is a volunteer speaker with the Gift of Life Donor Program.

The book was inspired by his interaction with the Penn patients.

"A lot of older and younger people are on that transplant list, and I would speak to them, describing my experiences," Sabb said. "They often approached me to thank me for expressing the fears and concerns that they were feeling, but were having trouble expressing."

The transplant recipient still faces his own challenges. For the next four years, he has to take a variety of medications to keep his new heart stable. In that time, Sabb will continue to visit the hospital three times per month for biopsies of his heart.

Insurance will only cover so much of that.

"While I was recovering in the hospital, I talked to my social worker," Sabb said. "She said that the medications were going to be expensive and suggested I get in touch with the National Transplant Assistance Fund."

NTAF did help, offering an assistance grant of $500. However, Sabb’s medication costs exceeded $4,000 just in the brief span between last August and January.

As a national nonprofit, NTAF can’t fulfill all requests for help. But the group did step in to assist Sabb in setting up a fundraiser and established a regional fund to help cover his continuing medical costs.

Sabb and NTAF have organized a Second Annual Heart Transplant Fundraiser to be held at Wharton Square Park, 23rd and Wharton, on Aug. 14, noon to 6 p.m.

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Contributions to the regional fund are tax-deductible. For more information on the National Transplant Assistance Fund, call 800-642-8399.