Nairn heart transplant patient backs NHS Highland Organ Donation campaign
Angela Wilson's life was saved by a heart transplant - an incredible gift made possible by a stranger’s selfless choice. Her story is a moving reminder of how organ donation can turn tragedy into hope and give others a second chance at life.
“Every day when I wake up, my daily mantra is to thank my donor and his family. I am so, so grateful to be alive, but I never forget that my chance to live has come from someone else’s tragedy.”
Angela Wilson simply shouldn’t be here. We are sitting in her cottage in Nairn; there’s a view of the sea from her bedroom window, and she walks on the beach every day with her dog Hugo.
Eight years ago, Angela began to feel breathless. She was more tired than usual but put her fatigue down to a number of things; she’d just celebrated her 50th birthday and had been working hard as a beautician in the run up to Christmas and New Year, when she had enjoyed a busy time with family and friends.
One evening, as her elder son was going out to football, she thought she was having a heart attack. Jaime called an ambulance, and Angela was rushed to Raigmore where, after tests, it transpired she was in heart failure. Within 48 hours she was on her way to the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow.
The hope was that her heart failure could be treated with medication, but that turned out not to be the case. Angela only realised she had been transferred to the heart transplant ward after her sister came to visit.
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“It was surreal,” said Angela, recalling this as part of the current NHS Highland Organ Donation campaign, of which we are a media partner.
“I couldn’t get my head around the fact that I was that ill, or that I was now waiting for someone to die so that I could have the chance to live.
“Three weeks earlier I’d been having lunch in Café 1 in Inverness with friends, now I was lying on my back in a hospital bed with my heart operating at just four per cent capacity, effectively dying, but being kept alive by a machine. I kept saying to myself: ‘I’m a mum, I can do this’.“
Angela didn’t realise it at the time, but her heart failure was so severe that she was immediately put to the top of the transplant list.
“The only thing I really knew about organ donation was that I’d signed that section of my driver’s license when I passed my test at 17,” she says. “To be needing a new heart, or I would die, was something I just didn’t have time to get my head around.”
In March 2017, just six weeks after being admitted to Raigmore, Angela received a donor heart.
“Waking up with a new heart was both amazing and strange,” she said. “I had to learn to walk again and will be immune suppressed for the rest of my life, but apart from regular check-ups at The Golden Jubilee, to get scans, blood tests, and my meds checked, I am good to go.”
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Angela’s health will never be as robust as it was before surgery, but she is eternally grateful for her second chance at life.
“All I know about my donor is that he was 30 years old and suffered a brain haemorrhage”, she says. “But he is with me every day, on every family occasion, and on the anniversaries of my operation. I am also aware that when I am celebrating the anniversary of my new heart, another family will never forget that date either. It is bittersweet.”
The extra eight years of life have allowed Angela to watch her family grow up, graduate, excel in their chosen fields, and meet and settle with partners. It has given her time to make new friendships, and to meet a new partner.
If it’s possible for her to step back and look at the bigger picture, how would she describe the organ transplant programme?
“It’s about giving someone else life when you can’t live any more,” Angela said. “My donor died, and that’s an absolute tragedy for the people who loved him, but his death isn’t something anyone could have prevented. For me to have been given life out of another family’s tragedy is the most precious gift.”
Organ Donation in Scotland brings hope out of tragedy. Find out more about Organ Donation here and register your wishes online. Then talk to your family about your wishes. Although Scotland legally has an opt-out system, your family’s wishes will always take precedence, meaning that your wishes to donate could be overridden.
Myth to bust
I don’t need to be on the organ donor register. Scotland has an opt-out system. In theory this is true, but in practice, your family’s wishes can override your own. That means it’s really important to get informed about organ donation, talk to your family about what you decide, and then register your wishes online. Don’t leave it to chance, and don’t leave them with another decision to make when they are already in shock and grief.
