Myself, Josh and Amelia have set ourselves the challenge of jumping out of a plane at 13,000 feet on 31st August 2019. In memory of Maddy, the person I had the pleasure of calling my best friend and my surrogate sister for 18 years.

Maddy wasn’t a normal 18 year old girl. She was normal in the fact that her favourite hobbies were listening to music, baking, playing football, and was about to begin her journey on applying for university; but Maddy was also totally unique and an inspirational 18 year old girl. In the Autumn of 2016 she started to experience severe migraines, exhaustion, breathlessness and constant nausea; symptoms that were initially associated with anxiety and stress during the pressures of the school year. However, in November 2016 Maddy’s family took her to Peterborough Hospital A&E after her symptoms had worsened where she was immediately admitted and diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy and severe heart failure. In fact, her heart was functioning at 20%. The Doctors told her family that results showed she had likely been putting up with symptoms of heart failure caused by the cardiomyopathy for quite a while, but at her age and without a family history of such a heart condition, it went undetected. Maddy was initially fitted with a state of the art defibrillator pacemaker and took a daily regime of medication but at the end of May 2017 she was admitted to Papworth hospital, assessed for heart transplant and placed on the urgent waiting list. After a cardiac arrest landed her in critical care unconscious and on life support, she had 4 false alarms and was made number 1 on the UK transplant list before finally receiving the gift of a new heart on 29th June. Sadly, a heart attack meant that the new heart was compromised and the transplantation was not successful. Miraculously, she began to recover from that first transplant and once taken out of a medical coma she was determined to get well enough to meet the criteria needed for a second transplant. She wanted nothing more than to go home to her family and her beloved new puppy. She confounded the medical team with her recovery and she underwent a second heart transplant on 25th July. Her brave last words to her parents and sister as she was taken to the operating theatre were, “Don’t worry, I’m fine”. She wanted to live. 

She had endured so much - over 200 blood transfusions, liver and kidney failure, lung injury and internal bleeding – but in the end her bravery was not enough. Maddy died on 7th August 2017 holding the hands of her family.

Please support the work of Cardiomypathy UK in memory of Maddy. Early diagnosis can help prevent or delay the progression of this disease so that those suffering from it can lead long and good quality lives. The smallest of donations will be hugely appreciated and will go such a long way.