I was sick of waiting for a new heart so I pulled out the wires in my chest
(And never told Mum!)
MIRROR boy Max Johnson has told of his secret despair as he waited for a new heart, and how he even “yanked out” a wire connecting him to the machine keeping him alive.
The nine-year-old was on the organ transplant list for seven months before a donor was found.
In the meantime Max, who was desperately ill with an enlarged heart, was connected to a left ventricular assist device.
Speaking of his fight for survival, the brave youngster said: “Literally every morning I would close my eyes and I would say to myself, ‘Another day, please, another day’.” His mum Emma, 47, joked: “You didn’t tell me that.”
Referring to the wire connecting him to the machine, Max admitted: “There are a load of things I have not told you.
“At one point I gave up and yanked the heart wire out. The next day you could tell because it was bleeding and woozy. I just thought, ‘This is getting stupid, there has not been one single offer of a heart for me’. And then one week later, I got the transplant.”
Max, who had cardiomyopathy, finally had a transplant in August, at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. The nine-hour operation was filmed for a BBC documentary to mark the 50th anniversary of the first heart transplant, which airs next month.
Max spoke at length about his experience waiting for a donor and why he felt it was so important to support the Mirror’s Change the Law for Life campaign.
He said: “I wanted to save people’s lives because I knew what it was like. It was horrible.” Max’s dad Paul, 44, and Emma also shared their gratitude to the donor family who saved their son’s life.
Fighting back tears, market researcher Emma said: “We think of them every day. What they have done is amazing. I feel incredibly lucky that we have our little
boy. We are so blessed someone had the courage and humanity at what I don’t doubt must’ve been the hardest time of their lives, to give someone this chance. How do you say thank you for that?”
She added: “We just hope that we can help raise awareness and save lives for people who are languishing on the waiting list and getting sicker.”
Prime Minister Theresa May wrote a personal letter to Max following our campaign for an “opt-out” law in England and Northern Ireland, in which everyone is presumed to be an organ donor unless they opt out.
It has already been introduced in Wales, with Scotland following suit. Experts believe the new legislation could save up to 500 lives a year across the UK.
In a moving interview, one Cardiffbased consultant told the BBC how operating theatre staff wept over a boy aged four who saved lives with his organs. He said: “I have a four-year-old girl and she [sleeps] in Paw Patrol pyjamas. When they brought this little lad into theatre, he was wearing the same pyjamas as my little girl. “That little boy had died and his family wanted some good to come from it. The next day his liver and heart were transplanted, and two kidneys have been transplanted and saved lives.” Emma, from Winsford, Cheshire, added the work of the surgeons in Max’s transplant was “incredible” but it first needed the courage of a donor family. The BBC film featuring the youngster’s operation, working title Second Chance, airs 50 years after South African cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant. He did the procedure on December 3, 1967, with the patient, Louis Waschkansky, 54, surviving for 19 days.
I thought, ‘It’s getting stupid, there’s not been one single offer’ MAX JOHNSON ON HIS DESPAIR AT ORGAN WAIT