New tech saves lives
THE life of a Shawlands woman who suffers from a deadly heart condition was saved thanks to cutting edge technology.
The ‘heart in a box’ system meant JulieAnn Morris received a vital heart transplant.
LAST Christmas Julie-Ann Morris was coming to terms with dying young.
The 41-year-old, from Shawlands in Glasgow, had been told by doctors that her only hope of survival was a heart transplant after her health deteriorated suddenly.
But within weeks, she became one of only two patients in Scotland to date to benefit from cutting edge transplant technology at the Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank.
Julie-Ann had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy as a teenager, a condition where the heart muscle becomes thick and rigid, eventually destroying its ability to pump blood.
Although she had two separate defibrillators implanted in her heart in 2006 and 2012 to help regulate its rhythm, the senior insurance underwriter said she had accepted she would probably die young.
She said: “I always just lived with cardiomyopathy, as I was physically restricted I sometimes felt I was just existing rather than living.
“I have had many affected relatives who have died of sudden cardiac death, so I never really feared death, I just accepted I was likely to die young.”
After her health took a turn for the worse in December 2017, surgeons concluded that a heart transplant was her only hope.
Within four days of being put on the transplant list, Julie-Ann was told that a life-changing donor heart had become available.
It was transferred using the revolutionary ‘Heart in a Box’ – the world’s first portable system which keeps human organs warm and functioning outside of the body for longer. Officially known as the Organ Care System (OCS), the device is roughly the size of a lunchbox and keeps hearts beating using more than a litre of the donor’s blood, with oxygen and glucose pumped into the chamber.
It is also the first technology to enable transplants using hearts donated after cardiac death, as long as hearts are placed in the box within 30 minutes of stopping beating.
Julie-Ann said: “I didn’t have long to live when I was admitted and I then knew I was never going to get out of hospital again unless I had a transplant, so you just go for it when it’s offered.
“Now I have a chance to have more of a life than I ever had. Before I was physically unable to walk even short distances, but now I can look forward to a future where I want to climb a Munro.”
Roger Marr, 46, from Prestonpans in East Lothian, also underwent his heart transplant at the Golden Jubilee this year thanks to OCS.
Transplant surgeon Phil Curry said: “Roger and JulieAnn are both young and were critically ill, but they are now making good progress and I have little doubt that using the OCS helped keep the donors’ hearts in premium condition before transplantation.”
‘‘ Now I have a chance to have more of a life than I ever had