Truly happy birthday: Aurora  musician receives a new heart

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Joe Petit plays the keyboard in the band 'Sacred Warrior' during a recent European tour. Early Thursday morning, Petit underwent a heart transplant at University of Chicago Medical Center. Not only was it Petit's birthday, he was on the recipient list less than two days. | Photo courtesy~Warehouse Church

Updated: December 19, 2011 8:19AM

AURORA — Auroran Joe Petit got a pretty welcome birthday surprise.

After only 48 hours on the organ recipient list, Petit received a new heart Wednesday night — reason for family and friends to celebrate on Petit’s 42nd birthday Thursday.

The text message Petit sent earlier to friends and family went something like this: “At University of Chicago Medical Center for my surgery. You can pray all night and into my 42nd birthday if you don’t mind.”

“I was at Walmart when I got the text, and I was just floored,” said Joe Holman, communications assistant at Warehouse Church, where Petit is an active member.

Petit and his wife Amy lead the church’s couples ministry from their home.

“Just Sunday, he’d told us he was going Monday to be evaluated. He wasn’t on the list even 48 hours before the heart became available,” Holman said.

In addition to his work at the church, Petit is a member of Sacred Warrior, a praise-and-worship heavy metal band, which returned from a tour of Europe early this year.

Petit’s children are also musical — daughter Kyra and son Kyle both play instruments and are members of Warehouse Church’s youth ministry.

“Joe’s been having some struggles with his heart for a little over a year now. One day he was leaving church and he was very pale and having a hard time breathing,” said Holman. “In fact, he went straight to the emergency room because he felt so badly, and they put in pacemaker.”

Though he had been living with that pacemaker since January 2010, his heart problems never totally went away.

“It never really achieved what they hoped for it to achieve. Recently in the past couple months the talk shifted toward looking at a transplant,” said Holman.

Late Wednesday night, that talk turned into surgery, which, according to Petit’s surgery team, “couldn’t have gone better.” Petit woke up from the surgery in the early morning hours on Thursday, and was wished a happy birthday by his doctors.