Heart patient in plea over transplant
Man is awaiting second transplant
NHS: A man who has been waiting for a heart transplant for nearly a decade has made a plea to potential donors. Gareth Evans, 45, from Stockport, has been waiting for a new heart for more than nine years.
He needed his first heart transplant when he was 17 due to cardiomyopathy, a disease affecting the heart muscle.
A MAN who has been waiting for a heart transplant for nearly a decade has made a desperate plea to potential donors.
Gareth Evans, 45, from Stockport, has been waiting for a new heart for more than nine years.
He needed his first heart transplant when he was just 17 due to cardiomyopathy, a disease affecting the heart muscle.
The organ has lasted for 28 years, despite being told that the life expectancy of his transplanted heart was between just five and 10 years.
But he was put on the general waiting list on February 23 2009, and is currently the longestwaiting heart patient on Britain’s transplant list.
Mr Evans has become profoundly ill during his wait and has spent the last three months in Wythenshawe Hospital, near Manchester.
His plea comes during Organ Donation Week, as NHS Blood and Transplant is urging people to talk to their families about their wishes surrounding organ donation.
It said that last year, around 3,000 transplants were missed because families said no to donating their relative’s organs, and more than 6,000 people are currently on the waiting list.
At one stage, Mr Evans said he was removed from the transplant list for a new heart and was forced to tell his wife and children to expect the worst.
He described the moment as “the lowest point in my life”.
But he was put back on the list after adjustments to his medication meant he became well enough to cope with the surgery again. Mr Evans said that he first became ill when he was aged just 16, while studying for his GCSEs.
“Obviously with the stress of my exams I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” he said.
“I got an apprenticeship, started my apprenticeship and started to notice that I was getting out of breath and I thought ‘something’s not right’,” he said.
“I went for some tests and they found out I had cardiomyopathy my heart had gone twice the size it should have been, the valves were leaking and the muscles had gone weak. Within six months I had a heart transplant.”
Mr Evans added: “The best thing I could do to honour my donor was to lead a good, normal life. And that’s what I did. I worked hard.”
He enjoyed a 19-year long career, which culminated in him being a senior purchasing executive at BAE Systems, but he was forced to take early retirement due to ill health.
“All of a sudden I went back to square one, back on the list,” the father-of-two said.
Mr Evans added: “The only way I can describe it is that for nearly a decade of my life I have been existing and not living. When I took retirement I thought three years would be the worst-case scenario before I got a new heart. If there was enough donors I’d have had a new heart by then and I’d be back to work and carrying on.
“Nine-and-a-half years later and I’m still waiting.
“There are not enough people talking to their families and saying ‘I want to be an organ donor, you need to know my wishes’.”
For nearly a decade of my life I have been existing not living... Heart patient Gareth Evans, 45.