11-year-old visited by Drake celebrates successful heart transplant: 'I felt more alive'
The 11-year-old girl visited by Drake in the hospital as she waited for a new heart spoke today, with her mom and team of doctors, thanking people for so much support during her heart failure, the agonizing wait for a donor and receving a full transplant.
"Thank you guys for all the support, I couldn’t go through this without you," Sofia Sanchez said at the press conference.
Despite suffering from heart failure and receiving a device to help her heart pump blood, Sofia made a video in August doing a "kiki challenge," while still hooked up to her IV in the hospital. In the now-viral video, she asked for Drake to visit her and for a new heart -- and now she has both.
Sofia said all the responses and cards that she received afterwards "really helped me go through this" and that she and her mom are "trying to find a way to say thank you for all the people" who sent her messages.
She spoke to ABC News on Wednesday about how she's "felt more alive" since receiving the new heart.
"It’s so much better than my other heart," Sofia told ABC News.
One of the people who helped the pre-teen fight for her life was rap star Drake, who her doctors said visited her for about 90 minutes at the hospital. Sofia called the rapper and singer, "a really nice person" and even though it really happened, his visit "felt like a dream."
"He said 'Stay strong and keep fighting and you will get through this,'" she remembered. "It helped a lot. I had some tough times, I felt like all my friends were having fun and all that."
The doctors described Sofia's "incredible journey," from the time she checked into Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in June and noted her "spunky" spirit.
Sofia was officially put on the heart transplant list on July 10th and given a ventricular assist device. While the machine helped bypass her failing left ventricle and pump more blood, she was able to survive waiting for a new heart -- and even shoot the kiki dance video. She finally made it to the top of the list to get a new heart in August.
Sofia spoke to ABC News about her first reaction to finding out she was getting a new heart: "I was like, 'Bye-bye cardiomyopathy heart.'”
Sofia told ABC News Wednesday that she and Drake "got along pretty well."
The international music star even gave her his personal cell phone number, which she "pinky-promised" she wouldn't give away to anyone else.
Nearly one week after meeting Drake and after 48 days of waiting, a donor heart became available and she underwent the nine-hour heart transplant on Aug. 27.
Sofia was discharged from the hospital on Sept. 12.
She has spent the past week continuing to recover at the Ronald McDonald House near Lurie Children’s.
While Sofia said she is enjoying playing sports and doing things she couldn't do with her old heart, she still urged others not to forget the many other children who may still be waiting for a life-saving organ donation.
"There’s a lot of kids that are waiting for a transplant," she said. "And it's important for everybody to be a donor."
Sofia's mom, Natalie Sanchez, said that after her daughter got the new heart, "Every day gets better and better."
"She has a second chance at life, and it's amazing," she said, adding they are incredibly "grateful" for the "donor and his family."
ABC News' Mark Osborne, Zoe Moore and Joyeeta Biswas contributed to this report.
