Veronika Stumpo, 20, was born with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart is enlarged and too weak to pump blood throughout the body. At age 18, she was told she would need a heart transplant to live. Heart disease runs in the family. Her father, Don, a cameraman for NBC, died at age 59 from kidney failure 20 years after receiving his own heart transplant. Don's father and sister both died from heart failure.

Veronika is a familiar face at the University of Virginia Medical Center and regularly makes the two and a half hour drive for check ups or immediate medical attention. UVA has the closest hospital that accepts her insurance. "I don't remember how many times I've been to this hospital" Veronika said. "And I've only gotten a good view once."

A UVA Medical Center nurse performs a routine clean of Veronika's Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD), the mechanism that has kept her alive while she waits for a transplant. The LVAD is a battery powered device that helps her failing heart pump blood throughout her body.

Veronika leaves a restaurant with her family in Arlington, VA. Her bright personality and quick sense of humor often makes her the center of attention at social gatherings.

Veronika pauses in the living room of her Arlington, VA home while her mother cooks dinner. "Just waiting for a heart is the worst thing in the world" Veronika said. "You just sit and wait and you never know when you are gonna get that phone call."

Veronika sits before medical supplies she uses to change her IV every six hours. After a year and a half on the LVAD, Veronika was given an IV to carry with her that constantly administers medicine that will prevent her body from deteriorating.

Veronika's friend, Nannet, and her Mother, Ivona, help change an IV before leaving to eat lunch. Veronika's friends have been enormously supportive and sometimes even help with routine procedures.

Veronika cannot survive without her LVAD system and has learned to live a normal life around it.

Veronika meets up with friends in the parking lot of a Northern Virginia shopping complex.

Despite the constant presence of the LVAD and the stresses of a waiting for the transplant, Veronika is determined to move on with her life. "I play video games, I get dressed up for Halloween and parties, I go hang out with my friends, I play D and D, I drive, I go to the movies and do everything a normal 20 year old would do."

Veronika's mother discusses the maintenance of her condition after dropping her younger brother off at the movies.

Veronika's LVAD must be powered at all times. During the day she wears two battery packs and connects to a power supply on her nightstand when she goes to sleep. "It's better to go through all this then not being here, I’ve got big plans in life."

Veronika's healthy new heart beats two days after receiving her transplant. She received the phone call she had been waiting for at 3:00 a.m. on Friday December 2, 2011 and was in the operating room within six hours.

Three days after the operation, a surgeon (left) removes stomach tubes that were left over from the LVAD while a nurse administers additional medicine. With fresh scars and a weak immune system to prevent her body from rejecting the new heart, nurses doctors, surgeons and physical therapists flow in and out of Veronika's room to oversee the recovery process.

After a stressful and painful procedure, Veronika breaks down beside her step mother, Ira.

Ira, watches a sterile procedure from outside a closed room.

Veronika winces in pain two days after the surgery. The most painful part of the recovery process is coping with her ribs that were broken in order to perform the open heart surgery.

A physical therapist helps Veronika take her first steps after the surgery with the assistance of a walker. The nurses and doctors love Veronika because she is usually the youngest patient on the cardiac floor by twenty years and constantly maintains a positive outlook.

Veronika talks with her mother over the phone after a stressful day of recovering following the transplant. Although her mother spends every moment she can with her daughter, Veronika often sleeps alone at the hospital because her mother works three hours away in Northern Virginia.

Two years after her father's death, Veronika is committed to fully recovering: "I feel like I really have to keep trekking on because my dad suffered through this and now I have to show him that I’m even stronger than he is."