WHO. Jennifer Sutton, 38, was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy and received a heart transplant in 2007.
He. The operation saved his life; He has since become a game warden in Wales and was married last year.
Because. 16 years later, he has been reunited with his old ailing heart, which is part of an exhibition at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
the first time that jennifer sutton Her old heart, which was kept in a glass case, was found again, she just said “Shit!(“Yuck!”). After an initial feeling of disgust, he began to feel curious, and eventually became excited: “It was something surreal and surprising at the same time, to encounter a limb that had haunted me for 22 years.” I was allowed to live and at the same time I felt so much pain and suffering”.
Jennifer was admitted for heart failure in 2007 and Was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy, a disorder that causes the heart muscle to stiffen, which affects blood pumping and often leads to fatigue and respiratory failure. Her mother died of a fatal condition when she was thirteen.
“I was always slower than kids my age,” she recalls. “At school I was very bad at sports. I was out of breath when climbing a slope and when I walked fifty meters I already felt palpitations, I turned blue and it was hard for me to breathe was… I suspected something was wrong with me, but I didn’t realize it until they took me to the hospital, when I was already in my second year of university”.
After her sudden admission, she was placed under medical observation and on a waiting list for a transplant. He was lucky, a donor was soon found. All she knew about him was that his name was Richard and that he was 33 years old. In June 2007, she had open heart surgery at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. so he told the daily mail What were you feeling when you woke up?
“My face was pink, my cheeks were hot, my fingers were covered in blood. But I could finally feel my heartbeat and it felt amazing. I thought: ‘I’m alive!’ and she got me to dance,
Life revolved around him. His old heart was almost a past existence. The natural destination of the organ was cremation, as is usually the case after a transplant. But then he got a call from The Wellcome Collection, the iconoclastic London gallery that was preparing an exhibition for that summer titled Heart, They asked her permission to preserve and display her heart, and she agreed.
The first meeting thus took place two months after the beginning of his “second life”. At first he was surprised to see the pallor of his old man. Motor, has nothing to do with that blood-soaked red color we all have in mind. They also explained to her that her heart was narrower than normal, as her “restrictive” condition basically prevented the heart muscle from relaxing.
The dignity with which he lived for 22 years, he understood at a glance and he was overwhelmed with gratitude towards his benefactor and To his doctor, Stephen Large, whom he has now reunited after 16 years at the Royal College of Surgeons in Holborn, London.
There the sick heart is displayed again in its glass case these days. And Jennifer Sutton, who married Tom last year and works as a forest ranger in Snowdonia National Park (Wales), didn’t want to miss the appointment: “It’s like meeting an old friend again, and I Whatever I am doing, I am remembering everything for that.” had to go through.”
The exhibition serves as a call to action to encourage British people to donate their organs and to give hope to those dependent on transplants. “The problem is not lack of funds, but lack of donors”, Doctor. Insist on Large. “It must be remembered that this benefits not only the recipient, but also the families of the donors… Few things are more comforting than seeing that your loved one contributed in their own way to keeping someone alive.” Have given.”
