BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhuanet) -- For Hannah Clark, a teenager from Cardiff Wales who survived with two hearts for more than a decade after doctors implanted a donor heart onto her own faulty heart in 1995, living with her own heart seemed all but impossible. But, she is now living a healthy and normal life.

The photo taken on July 13, 2009 in London shows Hannah Clark, a teenager from Cardiff Wales, is now living a healthy and normal life. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    In 2006, doctors removed her doner heart after they discovered that her own damaged heart began to heal itself.

    Hannah was eight-months-old when she was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy -- an inflammation of the heart muscle that impairs the heart's ability to work properly--in 1994.

    Hannah's heart was failing and she needed a transplant. But instead of taking her own heart out, doctors added a new donated heart to her own when she was just two-years-old.

    After four-and-a-half years, both hearts were working fine. But the powerful drugs Hannah was taking to prevent her from rejecting the donor heart caused cancer, which led to chemotherapy. Even when doctors lowered the doses of drugs to suppress Hannah's immune system, the cancer spread, and her body eventually rejected the donor heart.

The photo taken on July 13, 2009 in London shows Hannah Clark (R-2), a teenager from Cardiff Wales, is now living a healthy and normal life. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    Nevertheless, by that time, Hannah's own heart seemed to have fully recovered. In February 2006, Dr. Victor Tsang of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and other doctors removed Hannah's donor heart.

    Hannah has started playing sports, working a part-time job, and plans to go back to school in September.

    The details of the surgery have been published in the British medical journal, the Lancet.

    (Agencies)