THE RECIPIENT

My message to my donor’s family? I’m so grateful to be healthy and happy again. Thank you

– Angela Hughes

The first thing Angela Hughes noticed when she woke was the strong, rhythmic thump. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

She placed her hand gently on her chest and felt her new heart beating.

Given the gift of life, fittingly on Christmas Day, Angela’s operation went perfectly and she was home just three and a half weeks later.

It’s now more than five years since Angela, who lives in Monifieth, Angus, went through the procedure and her health has been transformed since receiving a new heart.

“I was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in my early-20s, as was my brother,” Angela explained. “We were told it was a genetic condition but it was very mild in me and the only effect I noticed was occasional breathlessness.

“It was my late-30s before it started to worsen and I had several ablation procedures to burn the rogue pathways, as well as two pacemakers and a defibrillator fitted. It was shocked back into rhythm several times as well.

“Eventually, my poor heart had enough.”

Angela was admitted to the Golden Jubilee, so ill that specialists weren’t sure at first if she was fit enough to be listed for a transplant. Seventeen days after being placed on the list, a suitable heart became available.

“One thing I was very aware of, and still am, is the strange sensation of knowing that in order to survive, someone else isn’t going to be here. While your family is happy, another is grieving. I still find that hard.

“A doctor pointed out to me that I couldn’t put the two things together, because the other was nothing to do with me. But you can’t help but feel it, especially at that time of year.”

Between diagnosis in her 20s and the operation when she was 46, Angela’s dad was also diagnosed with the same condition and he underwent a heart transplant in 2002.

Aged 73, 18 years on, he is still doing well.

“When he came to see me after my operation, he pulled a nurse aside and asked who had put lipstick on me,” said Angela. “He thought the nurses had put make-up on me so I looked nice for my family visiting. He wasn’t used to seeing me with colour.

“You don’t realise how ill you’ve become until you are no longer ill.

“I loved being able to say I was popping out to the shops and not having to plan it out with breaks.

“All of that went away overnight and it was hard not to be overexcited about it.”

The following year, Angela married her devoted partner Paul, who was by her side throughout the worst of her illness, and she is now a full-time writer.

Although she has had a couple of bumps in the road since the operation, she is in good health. She will be on medication for life and attends the Golden Jubilee twice a year for check-ups, but it’s a small price to pay for getting her life back.

She added: “I wrote a letter to the donor’s family 10 months after the operation. I wanted to say thank you, to acknowledge it, and to say sorry for their loss.

“I wanted to let them know I was OK and I appreciated it

– it felt important to do it before the first anniversary.

“I don’t know if they have read it. It might still be with the transplant co-ordinator and I understand completely if the family didn’t want to read it.

“Organ donation is so important and that’s something I want to highlight.”