Mum and girl’s hearty thanks
THE day Lana Simon turns 13 mum Charlotte will sit her down for an important talk.
Charlotte will ask her girl if she wants to donate her organs should she tragically die young. It seems a strange topic but the 39- year- old single mum and daughter, aged 11, only have a life together thanks to a stranger’s heart given to Charlotte.
Following a campaign by the Daily Mirror, MPs have agreed to change the law in England.
It means adults are registered as donors automatically unless they take steps to opt out. But parents will still decide whether to donate their kids’ organs.
Crash
Charlotte said: “I’ve put her off making the decision until she turns 13. A stranger gave us the gift of life together and it’ll be up to her if she wants to do the same should anything happen.”
Both mum and daughter are alive only thanks to advances in modern medicine.
Charlotte’s heart problems started after she suffered a bout of rheumatic fever aged 15.
By 18 she had asthma- like symptoms which were related to a heart murmur.
In 2005 Charlotte had corrective surgery for a heart valve but a year later needed a full replacement. Then in February 2006, within months of her surgery surgery, she was shocked to discover she was pregnant. She said: “I’d suffered endometriosis and was told I’d probably never have kids.”
But as t he pregnancy progressed Charlotte started to get breathless. At 18 weeks doctors advised her to terminate the pregnancy because both she and the baby could die.
She said: “I was devastated. I couldn’t breathe or finish a sentence but said, ‘No way.’ It was a tough decision but I knew it was the right one.”
Charlotte went into heart failure and spent 11 weeks being k kept alive at L London’s St Mary’s Hospital before Lana was delivered by em emergency caesarean in October 2006, we weighing 14oz.
It was days before Ch Charlotte could hold La Lana in her arms.
She said: “She was so tiny. She was in an inc incubator and all I wa wanted to do was hold he her and cuddle her.”
Mum and daughter we were finally allowed hom home from hospital in tim time for Christmas.
W Without the strain of the pregnancy, Cha Charlotte’s condition improved slightly but by the time Lana was two she needed an oxygen machine at home and was put on the urgent transplant list.
In 2009 she was given the heart of a 24-year-old who had died in a motorbike crash. Charlotte, of Paddington, West London, said: “I was terrified the transplant might not happen but I knew someone had to die to give me a chance of life with Lana.
“Words can’t describe the moment I woke up and realised I had a new heart. For the second time I couldn’t wait to hold Lana in my arms again.”
Charlotte said: “If it wasn’t for the generosity of that lady’s decision I probably wouldn’t be here, enjoying life with my lovely daughter.”