From The Sentinel in the UK:
By George Oliver
A seven-year-old boy born with half a heart is having tests this week to see if he is eligible for a life-saving transplant.
Sam Griffiths is travelling from Birmingham Children's Hospital to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to see if he can be added to the donor list.
His mum Nicola said: "It is unlikely he will leave hospital unless he gets a heart. Otherwise he will stay there and that will be it."
Sam, from Bridge Street, Silverdale, was taken to Birmingham Children's Hospital within hours of being born in October 2000.
Consultants revealed Sam was missing parts of his heart, and what he did have had a hole in the middle.
It meant blood was not getting into his lungs, and he had his first operation at just a day old.
Since then Sam has had five lots of open-heart surgery, taken countless medicines and had a pacemaker fitted.
Nicola, aged 30, added: "His last operation was to get his heart ready for a next-stage operation. But it uncovered how bad his heart function is.
"He is in heart failure now, so there is nothing they can do surgically."
Sam was travelling north today and will stay for three nights as experts decide if he should go onto the transplant list.
Nicola said: "Sam was on the transplant list for six months when he was two, but he perked up with his medication so we took him off it, and we have had a few years where he has had some quality of life. There will have to be something very drastic for us not to get on the list.
"The worst case scenario would be that there is something wrong with his lung pressure, because if there was anything wrong with that it would mean heart and lung surgery, and I don't think that is something we would go for.
"It would be a nightmare scenario.
"Normally Sam is really perky and chatty and takes everything in his stride, but he is really struggling at the moment because he is bored because he cannot do anything."
Grandmother Lynda Bedson says Sam enjoys playing with sisters Lucy, aged five and Bailey, aged nine months, and three-year-old brother Logan.
The 61-year-old, of Lockwood Street, Newcastle, said: "He is such a lovely lad who never complains or moans and just gets on with life.
"He is smashing with his brothers and sisters, and if you looked at him you would not believe there was anything wrong with him."
Sam went to Blackfriars Special School, but is now a pupil at St John's Primary School, Keele, and Nicola thanked everyone there for their support.
St John's headteacher Jill Price said: "Sam is a pleasure to have in school and takes as much of an active part as he can.
"He has lots of friends who are wishing him luck and thinking about him all the time, as are all the people who have supported him in school."
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