Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
2 years ago today I was told by my heart surgeon to say Goodbye to my family. Days earlier I had been admitted to hospital and diagnosed with Sepsis, the cause was a primary heart infection. For a 38 year old born with congenital heart disease my chances of survival were minimal.
I was shown scans of the infection sat on my aortic valve, destroying my heart and starting to shut down my vital organs. I felt utterly hopeless but I was determined to go into my impending heart surgery (where the surgeon had no idea what he would find) with determination, courage and fearless hope that I would survive.
19 hours of heart surgery discovered a heart far more infected than even the medical team had expected. I was alive and my heart had been rebuilt with a human donor valve, a newly fitted pacemaker, stents and even a vein harvested from my left leg placed into my heart. A truly EPIC procedure performed by the best cardiac team in the world at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London.
LIMITED EDITION ANNIVERSARY T-SHIRT 🤩🤩🤩
After 20 days spent in a coma and 3 months spent in the hospital I was so incredibly LUCKY to be alive. I knew it and everyone around me couldn’t believe I’d made it back.
My journey from surgery into the intensive care unit was fraught with set backs and 20 days into my medically induced coma my husband was dealt the news that everyone feared. The medical team had done all they could but my body wasn’t responding, a cardiac consultant told him; “We hope for the best and plan for the worst“.
1 day after, I woke up and continued to improve, slowly but very surely.
By no means is this a victory, just another hump in the road for the life of a congenital heart disease patient.
These 2 years have strangely been the best years of my life, I appreciate EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. Nothing is taken for granted and I feel so thankful that I have been given more time on earth.
These super LIMITED EDITION ANNIVERSARY T-SHIRTS are available to shop now…. as usual I will donate 5% to the British Heart Foundation and 5% to The Brompton Fountain from the sale of each T-shirt.
