Bridge to
transplant
By Ami Felker
S
hayla Hendricks combats her debilitating heart disease much the same way she confronts gangs that threaten her community — head on, with persistence, determination and patience.
As a gang intervention counselor for the City of Houston, Hendricks approaches her work from every angle to stop and prevent gang infiltration in the city’s youth. When she’s not at work, the young career woman is fighting another battle. In 2003, at just 23, Hendricks was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma and an inoperable tumor on her lungs. After several months of chemotherapy and countless infections and other complications, she finally entered remission.
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“Chemotherapy was the worst experience of my life, but I took it like a young person,” Hendricks says. “It was rough, but I beat it.” Sadly, she won the battle, but the war had just begun. Four years later, Hendricks suffered from severe shortness of breath and an abnormal heart rhythm, after which she received a pacemaker and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. “I knew my heart was eventually going to deteriorate as a side effect of the chemo,” she says. “I just thought I would be older. I never imagined I would be so young.” The next three years were full of hospital stays, and her heart eventually became so weak she could no longer walk the
