Teen Missed His High School Graduation While Waiting for Heart Transplant, So His Hospital Threw Him a Ceremony Instead

In elementary school, Taevion Norris hoped to play basketball for Duke University and then go professional.

“It was a dream,” Norris, now 18, tells PEOPLE.

But in the spring of sixth grade, his gym teacher called his mom, concerned.

“Taevion’s normally the first one in line, first one running in gym, first one finishing — but he said, ‘Taevion has started being last,’ ” recalls his mother, Tainica Norris, 41, of La Grange, Ill.

The coach suggested the single mom take her son to a doctor.

Taevion was diagnosed with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy, a neuromuscular condition that leads to progressive weakening of the muscles.

As a 12-year-old, he couldn’t believe it.

“I thought they were just making stuff up,” Taevion says.

His mother, who worked at a daycare, was not familiar with the diagnosis. But after hearing the words, “Everything just changed,” she says.

Soon, her son started having trouble walking up stairs, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, he stopped being able to walk completely.

In March, the high school senior was throwing up constantly. He told his mother he didn’t want to go to the hospital because he didn’t want to miss school.

Duchenne’s weakens muscles, including the heart muscles, says Taevian’s doctor Anna Joong, medical director of the ventricular assist device program at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

“His heart failure was pretty significant,” says Joong, who tells PEOPLE that Taevian was “incredibly sick.”

On May 1, he was placed on the heart transplant list.

“He’s an amazing, amazing teenager,” Joong says. “He’s so easygoing and is just way more resilient than the rest of us.”

Despite waiting for a new heart in the hospital, the 18-year-old worked every day to finish his last two months of coursework and graduate on time.

“He is very determined,” says his mother.  “He’s a hard worker, he loves school.”

Since Taevion was too sick to leave the hospital, his graduation ceremony was held at Lurie Children’s Hospital on May 21. He wore a cap and gown and was wheeled down a hallway lined with his doctors and nurses as “Pomp and Circumstance” played while he officially graduated from West Leyden High School.

“There were tears everywhere,” says Hana Herrick, 43, school services coordinator at Lurie Children’s Hospital. “I was just so proud of him.”

Right now, Taevion is in the hospital waiting for a transplant.

“I just want to get it over with,” he tells PEOPLE.

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Tainica has started a GoFundMe to raise enough money for a wheelchair accessible vehicle for Taevion to help transport him to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy.

His words for other kids waiting for new hearts: “Don’t give up.”