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| Molly (2008) |
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Photo of Molly (left) with daughter Tammy, sons Simon & Sean and two grandchildren |
The doctors warned my parents that they did not expect me to live long enough to leave the hospital. My parents were devastated at the news. A priest was called in to baptise me in the hospital.
I lay gasping for breath with any crying and my mother had to feed me every two hours, as a full feed would cause me great discomfort.
My parents took me home - a small farm out in the Embakasi plains alongside the Nairobi National Park.
The next two years proved to be a continual battle to keep me alive. Breathless and blue if I cried or exerted my self in any way, my dear mother struggled to keep me from getting 'cyanosis' attacks which caused me to lose my breath and lapse into a faint, or unconsciousness. At that time the 'Mau Mau' revolutionary movement had started, which added to the strain on my parents.
At times some of the attacks were so bad, my mother thought I had breathed my last. I surprised the doctors by clinging to life.
By chance, some one read about a pioneering surgeon in England who was performing heart operations in London—his name was Russell Brock.
News of this gave my parents a little glimmer of hope that perhaps I could be helped. My condition was deteriorating and I was barely able to breathe. My mother flew me to England. My older sister who was eleven at the time came along to help my mother.
During the flight, I lapsed into unconsciousness due to the high altitude. I was given oxygen on the plane to keep me alive. Somehow I made the trip, and an ambulance waiting at the airport whisked me off to Guy's Hospital London.
My condition was stabilised and I was in an oxygen tent.
After examinations, Professor Brock told my mother that I had a hole in the heart and several other defects including a narrowing of the opening of the pulmonary artery with only a branch to the one lung. The hole in the heart allows a mixture of venous (stale) blood back into the circulation and causes other defects in the chambers of the heart itself.
Professor Brock said that they were not able to work inside the heart itself to correct all the defects; however, he would try to widen the pulmonary artery which may save my life. He also warned my mother that in the weakened condition I was in, the chances of my surviving the operation was around ten percent—in other words very little chance.
My mother, realising that it was my only chance, gave the go ahead for the operation.
Despite the odds I lived through the operation. Prof. Brock had done a done a life saving procedure on me and I did not struggle to breathe as much.
My life was saved and my joyful mother and sister took me back to Kenya a month later.
I continued my childhood having a limited physical endurance, and still getting breathless and cyanosed (blue) when I walked too much. I squatted every few yards and was not strong enough to even ride a bicycle. My family carried my around and I lived a very sheltered life, the life of a handicapped child.
When I was five and a half, I started primary school. This was to prove a challenge—just getting up early enough and dressing for school would tire me out, let alone the walk to the class room.
At break times I would sit on a bench and watch the other children playing—of course physical training and any sport was right out of the question.
Every morning we had assembly at the school, and I tried to attend but I fainted so many times during the singing of the hymns that I was the only child in the school that was allowed to sit outside the hall.
I felt different from other children and at times sad that I was not able to do what the other children took for granted.
I entered my teenage years and a year later, left Kenya for good when we moved to South Africa.
The schools were bigger that the ones I had attended in Kenya. I struggled to get about carrying a heavy suitcase from class to class. By this time, I was aware all too painfully aware that whenever I became over-tired and breathless—I would get a blue tinge to my face and my fingers became very blue as well. I became more and more embarrassed about this aspect of my condition, as well as the many times I fainted.
The doctors at the Johannesburg General Hospital monitored my condition. I was told that the complexity of my heart condition was such that they could not operate without great risk to my life, and so I struggled on.
By the time I was seventeen my condition was worsening and I was house-bound, thin and frail, becoming more breathless, and struggling to breathe like a fish out of water. I could not even walk into a shop to do a bit of shopping without getting breathless and fainting.
I had read about the wonderful work done at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town by Dr. Chris Barnard. I carried on somehow until I was eighteen when I wrote to Dr Barnard explaining my conditions and hoping he would be able to fix my heart.
I got a reply from Dr Barnard who told me that I must come to Groote Schuur for an assessment of my condition.
We had to wait until my Dad had enough leave to take me to Cape Town.
I entered the famous Groote Schuur Hospital where the world's first heart transplants were done and had days of tests done on me.
My parents and I were told by Dr. Val Schire the head of the Cardiac Section that my condition was such that I should have the operation immediately.
And so it was that a week after entering Groote Schuur that I underwent a total correction of Fallot's Tetrology, which was performed by Dr Marius Barnard (Chris was away on honeymoon at the time ) and Dr Hewitson. The hole in my heart was closed by a Dacron patch and the parts of my heart chambers which were too narrow were widened.
I remember coming around from the operation in the ICU ward where the world's first transplant patient had been. My mother brought a mirror for me to see my face, now pink and now longer a grey blue colour. I looked at my finger nails—no longer blue—it was a miracle to me.
I recovered enough in two weeks to return home, with much celebration.
As I recovered I found out how wonderful it was to walk without struggling for breath, it was a fantastic experience to have a totally new life.
My recuperation was not without its setbacks. I suffered a racing heartbeat several times. They called it ventricular tachycardia.
I was hospitalized a few times until my heart rate was stabilised. Then one day about four months after the operation, my heartbeat again went out of control, beating around 200 per minute. I was rushed by car to hospital.
I lost consciousness and my heart went into fibrillation. My veins collapsed and unconsciousness enveloped me. During this time my heart stopped three times for some minutes as the doctors struggled to re-start my heart.
It was touch-and-go, and I was very lucky to have survived when they finally stabilised my heart. I had loss of memory for weeks and unable to speak.
I took me several more weeks before I was able to remember anything. When I was well enough my parents told me what had happened to me the night I nearly died. Slowly I regained my strength and the tachycardia never occurred again.
The following year, 1971—I became engaged and married my first husband in 1972. I had completely recovered from the operation and my son Simon was born at the end of 1972. He was a completely natural birth.
Three years later I had a daughter Tammy and ten years after I had another son Sean who is now 23.
I only know of one other GUCH who has had three children—Jacqui, she lives in Cornwall and we correspond by e-mail. It is now some 38 years since I had my total correction of Fallot's Tetrology .
I have lead a very full and eventful life and now a grandmother. Despite having a irregular heartbeat, I still hope to live long enough to see my grandchildren grow up.
I am so grateful to all those wonderful doctors whose brilliance and dedication made it possible to live to tell my story.
I keep in contact with Marius Barnard who is delighted at the success of my life.
