MILWAUKEE —

A Wisconsin heart transplant recipient returned to Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee to thank his team of doctors and nurses, celebrating the one-year anniversary of his life-saving procedure.

"I'm thinking, 'Oh my God look what I'm doing now and a year ago where was I,'" Mark Hetzel said.

In November 2020, 70-year-old Hetzel, was diagnosed with late-stage heart failure. After traveling to Mayo Clinic in March 2021, doctors informed Hetzel he would need a heart transplant to have any future.

However, they were unable to place Hetzel on the organ waiting list, due to his age.

He was referred to the staff of doctors at Aurora St. Luke's where staff immediately took Hetzel in.

"In our program, we look at every patient as an individual and look at what criteria we have them meet, and if they meet every criteria besides age, we don't look at that as an exclusion," said cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. John Crouch.

On Sept. 2, 2021, Hetzel underwent a surgery and it was deemed successful.

He now spends his days in the fast lane, he rides 15 miles every day on his eBike.

"Saturday was the Michael J. Fox virtual ride across the country for Parkinson's and I rode 50 miles," Hetzel said.

Hetzel is dedicated to living a healthy life, "receiving someone's organs, someone's heart, I'm committed to life."

CHEVIOT, Ohio — When Brittney Suedhof took her daughter to a Children’s Hospital clinic in February, the first set of doctors she saw tried to send her home. It was a fever, she recalled them telling her. Elliana had become more tired than usual, needed her diaper changed less often and lost interest in eating or playing, but all of her swabs were normal. She would recover.

“That wasn’t enough for me,” Suedhof said Wednesday.

Her decision to seek a second opinion at the main Children’s Hospital campus likely saved her daughter’s life that day. Multiple hours, X-rays and blood tests later, they had a diagnosis: Dilated cardiomyopathy. An enlarged heart. Elliana’s case was unusually severe.

“At 9:30 p.m., the doctor walked in and admitted us,” she said. “Said, ‘Your daughter’s heart is a 10 out of 10. We’ll admit her now. This is very life-threatening.’”

Suedhof said she had seen posts on Facebook about children with similar conditions, families fighting similar battles. Now she’s the one running a GoFundMe, scribbling down medical terms in a notebook and appealing to the kindness of strangers as her own family makes the long, slow climb toward what they hope will be a more permanent solution than Elliana’s toddler-sized VAD: A heart transplant.

The first months after the diagnosis were alright, Suedhof said. Elliana’s name went on a transplant recipient list, and the toddler herself went on a regimen of medications that she seemed to tolerate. She was herself again, according to her mother: “Very sassy, loving and caring.”

Things changed for the worse in April. By Wednesday, as Suedhof spoke to WCPO, Elliana had been “deactivated” as a potential heart recipient because of a kidney injury.

The family’s goal now is to get her back to her post-diagnosis normal and get her name back on the list. It’s hard, her mother said.

“There’s so much that we have to prevent before we have to get a heart transplant that we’re just like, ‘Can we do this?’” Suedhof said. “‘Can we make it? We can make it. Let’s do this.’”

Sweet, sassy Elliana is also exhausted with being in cardiac intensive care unit, she added. Suedhof, who works part-time, tries to spend every possible moment there with her — but she can’t afford to do that without financial help. She also has another child to care for.

So, for now, she lives on hope, alternates between home and the hospital, and keeps writing in her notebook.

“This notebook is my dictionary,” she said. “Like my memory log. Anything I need to know is in this notebook.”

She hopes the help her family needs is out there in the world.

“My baby looks so thriving on the outside,” Suedhof said of Elliana. “The inside is just trying to make it. Trying to make it.”

The family will celebrate Elliana's second birthday Aug. 7

Anyone who would like to donate to the family can do so via Suedhof's GoFundMe.

DURHAM, N.C. (Video: WRAL via CNN) —

When Jeff Benesch realized he likely didn't have much life left to live, he decided to make the most of it.

Benesch has been in and out of a North Carolina hospital for the last few months with congestive heart failure.

After he recently learned that he's not eligible for a heart transplant, Benesch chose to tie the knot with his soulmate.

"They told us it could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months," Sarah Myler, Benesch's girlfriend of nine years, told WRAL. "It could be any time. They don't know."

Myler and Benesch got married outside of Duke Hospital, thanks to hospital staff and family members. A hospital minister performed the ceremony, while nurses organized the event.

"It was important for us to have the moment together," Myler said. "I wanted that as a memory. And he wanted that as a memory."

Myler said nurses lined up chairs to make an aisle and decorated for the occasion the couple says they'll cherish forever.

"It's what you do for the person you love," Myler said. "You're there for them. It's till death to us part. But it's beyond that. It's forever for us. Forever — however long we have. It's forever for us."

Watch the video above to learn more about this story.

Former Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen said his son, TJ, has now hit a major milestone in his heart health journey, NBC affiliate WCNC reports.

In a video shared on Twitter on Wednesday, Olsen showed a video of TJ ringing a bell at Levine Children's hospital in Charlotte.

It marks an important day TJ has looked forward to since his admission to the intensive care unit.

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TJ was born with congenital heart disease. He lived the first eight years of his life with a modified heart. In May 2021, Greg Olsen shared TJ's heart was nearing its end, and a heart transplant would be necessary.

A donor match was found in mere days, and TJ soon underwent surgery. The surgery was successful, and TJ thanked his father's followers for their prayers and support on his long road to recovery.

Greg Olsen continued to share gratitude for prayers and support from fans, family, friends and community members.

He had previously taken time to specifically request prayers for the donor family, who so far the Olsens do not know, according to WCNC.