Katie was born with her heart back to front.. now she’s climbed Ben Nevis
Schoolgirl, 15, with rare condition stuns family to scale UK’s highest peak
BRAVE Katie MacRae has spent 15 years battling to stay alive – but that didn’t stop her from scaling Britain’s highest mountain. The teenager has been in and out of hospital since birth because her heart is wired back to front. She has endured multiple operations – twice having her heart stopped and her rib cage cracked open – between two days and 13 years old. Katie now has a heart “hammock”, made from raincoat material, a pig’s valve and three metal stents in her heart to keep it beating. But the youngster, who was born with the main arteries in her heart swapped, a narrowing of the pulmonary valve and a large hole in her heart, refuses to let her condition stand in her way. And, this summer, she defied the expectations of everyone – including her own – to reach the summit of Ben Nevis in just five hours, raising almost £2000 to help other children with heart problems.
The 15-year-old, from Inverness, who made the 4413ft ascent with her uncle Rory MacLeod, said: “When I told my granny and grandad I was going to do it, they thought I was joking.
“I didn’t really think I would be able to do it. It was exhausting.
“I had to stop about 10 minutes from the top because it got really steep and my feet were killing me.
“It was so foggy, you couldn’t really see in front of you. It seemed to go on forever but when we got to the top, I was like, ‘Yes, finally’. It felt really good.”
Proud mum, Tina, 38, added: “She just takes it all in her stride.
“I could never have imagined back at the start that she’d get to this point, to look at her and how well she has done. She’s just amazing.”
Katie’s rare condition – complex transposition of the great arteries – prevented oxygenated blood from circulating her body.
At two days old, she was airlifted from Inverness to Glasgow for a life-saving operation to keep a valve that naturally closes soon after birth open.
When she was old enough to have open heart surgery, a “Gore-tex hammock” was sewn in to help the organ work efficiently.
The six-hour operation was a success but just four days later her mum feared she had lost her daughter.
Tina said: “They put pacing wires in just in case they need to speed up the heart rate and when they came to take them out, it tickled her heart and she went into cardiac arrhythmia, and her heart started racing at 240 beats per minute.
“Her head was on the pillow and her back was arched, and they called the crash team. People were literally running towards her.
“It was just the worst. But about two hours after she was fine.”
Katie has now raised more than £1800 in aid of the Zak Scott Braveheart Foundation, which was set up in memory of the 14-year-old who died following complications after heart surgery.
To donate to Katie’s fundraising page, visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/katie-macrae26