Jaquavion “Qua” Johnson was born in September 2006. As a doctor was checking on the infants in the local hospital nursery, his attention quickly turned to Qua as he was turning blue. He was stabilized then airlifted to Children’s of Alabama. Doctors there determined he had a congenital heart defect called tricuspid atresia, a surprise to mom Marquitta Rivers.
At five days old, Qua had the first of a series of open-heart surgeries that are customary for this diagnosis. Tricuspid atresia happens when the heart’s tricuspid valve does not develop, therefore blood can’t flow from the heart’s right atrium (upper receiving chamber) to the right ventricle (lower pumping chamber) as it should.
He played a variety of sports throughout childhood, but when Qua reached middle school, mom Marquitta noticed her son just wasn’t himself. “He is my child, and I knew something was wrong.”
In early March 2021, a series of visits to his hometown pediatrician, emergency departments and cardiologists provided some clues. Marquitta came home one afternoon to find him crying. “Mom, I can hardly breathe,” he said. She booked an appointment with his pediatrician for the following day, but by that evening, Qua’s symptoms worsened, and Marquitta took him to an emergency department in Columbus, Georgia, a 45-minute ride from home.
Qua’s bloodwork and tests indicated that he needed more than just tests. “The doctors said they didn’t understand how Qua was up and walking around. Something wasn’t right with his heart,” Marquitta said. The doctors requested that Qua be transported to Children’s of Alabama for evaluation and treatment. She went back home long enough to gather up essentials for what she thought would be a few days in Birmingham and began the three-hour drive as Qua was flown to Children’s.
His heart wasn’t pumping well. The medications weren’t helping. All that was left was a heart transplant.
Qua joined the transplant list in April 2021. While many patients wait months or even years for a new heart, Qua’s critical condition helped the team at Children’s of Alabama find a heart for him less than two weeks later.
Marquitta got updates from the transplant team over the next eight hours. By the time she saw him in recovery, he was connected to multiple IVs and machines. “He looked at me as if to ask if all was OK. He grabbed my hand and nodded his head to tell me he was OK. Then he did the same with his dad. And then he went back to sleep,” Marquitta recalled. And just one month later, Qua was discharged ready to take on life with his new, healthy heart.
“I don’t know what the good Lord has in store for him, but I know it’s something,” Marquitta said.
