Meet Maya, rainbow princess, chef and future doctor

Maya is forever connected to the number seven. At just 7 months old — she had her first heart transplant. A few years later, she spent seven months in the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU) at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. When she was 7 years old, she had a second heart transplant.

Her parents, Brent and Valerie Stancil, became medical foster parents right after the first transplant, and they were able to officially adopt her when she was 3 years old. Maya’s biological parents were drug users, so she never received prenatal or postnatal care, and was born with opiates in her system.

Maya did well over the years, until in 2021 when she became sick with pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) and nearly died. The lung fungus is more likely to affect kids like Maya who have had a transplant or cancer and are immunocompromised. She was hospitalized for 34 days, fighting for her life.

“During that time is when she almost died,” Brent says. “Her kidneys, lungs and other organs were affected. That hospital stay was the most difficult.”

While she made it through the illness, she was lethargic and unlike herself and spent more than 200 days in the hospital where her health care providers within the Heart Institute determined she would need another heart transplant.

After seven long months, Maya finally received her new heart. James Quintessenza, M.D., co-director of the Heart Institute and chief of cardiovascular surgery at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, led her transplant surgery. Shortly after surgery, Maya was up and moving, and it was clear she hadn’t lost her big smile and spirited personality. She was able to go home April 2022, just in time for a fun-filled summer.

“She is like night and day. This is a different kid. She’s eating everything in sight. She is up at 7:30 every morning and going 100 miles an hour, and the doctor said her heart is beating like crazy,” says her dad, Brent.

Learn more about Maya and her story below: