Heart Transplant Patient Who Was Visited By Drake Reveals The Pair Text Regularly

An 11-year-old heart transplant patient has spoken about her friendship with hip-hop star Drake, revealing that the pair still text after he visited her following her successful surgery.

While waiting for a heart transplant in August, 11-year-old Sofia Sanchez lit up social media with her version of the latest dance craze to sweep the Internet, based on Drake's 'In My Feelings'.

The challenge saw people jumping from slowly moving vehicles to the lyrics, 'Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding?' - in her version, Sofia, who was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, swapping the car for her wheelchair.

ABC

The rap star saw the video and decided to pay her a surprise visit at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. To say she was made up would be massively understating it; as he walked in the room she greeted him with a screech of 'oh my god!' before a quite literal jaw drop.

Obviously, this was a dream come true for little Sofia, but things have only got better for her since then. On 27 August she underwent a nine-hour heart transplant operation, before being discharged on 12 September. She's now on the road to recovery at Ronald McDonald House in Chicago.

Better still, Sofia has said her relationship with Drake is still very much alive, with him often sending texts and even presents.

Speaking to ABC, she said: "I feel more alive. It's so much better than my other heart.

"He sent me an iPad Pro and on the back of it, it says 'Love always from Drake' and it is permanently on there, you can't scratch it off."

And if things couldn't get better still, Sofia revealed that Drake plans on inviting her to share the stage with him once she is back to full health.

She said: "He said that when I'm out of the hospital and can be around more people, he said he's going to bring me up on stage and sing 'God's Plan' with me."

What. A. Month. Oh, and people have also rallied together since the brave little girl went viral to raise more than $50,000 (£37,700) for the family.

Sofia's mum Natalie said: "I stayed strong for her, I cried at night a lot. When she had her few moments when she would get upset I would tell her to toughen up and that we've got to push through.

"There's always somebody who has it worse and we have to be grateful for what we have."

As for Drake's digits, Sofia said: "I can't give that away."

Looks like she'll be the only one calling him on his cell phone.

Topics: Drake, Awesome, Music, Inspirational, US Entertainment

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey