Appeal for families to talk about organ donation to help save more lives The law may have changed in that you have to opt out of organ donation – but do your family know your wishes?
At the end of 2018 Hannah Sharma thought she had a chest infection, but after a few weeks she was diagnosed with heart failure and in need of a heart transplant.
She said: “A few weeks in it felt more like Norovirus and I spent two weeks in my flat by myself with friends dropping food parcels to my door.
“After visiting the doctor and being sent home with antibiotics three times and a week spent at my mum’s house I decided it was time to go to the hospital. My breathing got really shallow, I had to sleep upright because every time I laid down I would choke because of the fluid that was building up around my organs.
“The hospital kept me in overnight and told me that I was in heart failure. They said that after a few weeks rest and with tablet medication I should be able to go back to work and live a relatively normal life.”
After taking the medication she crashed immediately; her body unable to tolerate it. She became bed bound and after a few days the decision was made to send her to a specialist heart and lung hospital in London.
Hannah had no family history of heart disease and it was diagnosed as potential dilated cardiomyopathy.
The time from first getting ill to her heart transplant was just four months.
Hannah, 29, said: “For two months I was prodded, poked and tested in every which way possible to work out what was going on and why. In this time I picked up sepsis and MRSA and had a small stint in intensive care.
“I was sent home in March to see if I could live on tablet medication. I couldn’t. Two weeks later I was back in for the ‘long haul’ and almost instantly put on the urgent transplant list. This was the only option for me now. I needed a new heart urgently.
“After a couple of failed calls (one heart didn’t stop quick enough and one heart was too small for me) I received my call six weeks after I had been listed. The week before I was given life I had picked up another infection and friends have said to me since they thought I might not make it through that week.”
Hannah, who lives in Mayfield, said that her recovery had been better than she could have ever imagine.
“There can be so many ups and downs in transplant and I feel extremely lucky to have had so many highs. I was discharged just two weeks after surgery and everything has just been getting better since then.”
New figures published in July by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) show that last year (2019/20) 1,580 people in the UK donated their organs after they died.
This allowed 3,760 patients to have the organ transplant they needed, including 55
I’m completely grateful for everyday I get to live.
HANNAH SHARMA Received a heart from a donor