A MAN who thought he had a hangover after last New Year’s Eve, but discovered it was heart failure, will celebrate December 31 with a brand new one after a transplant.
Ian Wilson, 21, spent the festive season at home in Glasgow after nearly a year of medical treatment down south. Fiancee Lyn McQuade, 21, had to make a 300-mile round trip every weekend so they could see each other. The couple started dating aged 17 – but at the start of this year Wilson struggled to recover from their Hogmanay celebrations and dismissed it as being under the weather.
Doctors quickly assessed that he was suffering heart failure.
Wilson was rushed into Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, that day, where he was treated for a month before being transferred to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle and faced an agonising wait on the “urgent” heart transplant list.
By the summer, he was so ill that the couple began to fear the longed-for transplant would never happen – and two false starts raised and dashed their hopes.
Now back in Glasgow since being discharged in November, Wilson is looking forward to celebrating a day he feared he might never see.
He said: “I thought I was going to be in hospital for Christmas. My medication stopped working for a while and my heart started to fail. We were told that there might not be anything they could do. They were looking at bringing a heart from Europe but it’s a big risk.”
Born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, Wilson underwent three major operations as a child – and recalls being one of 10 children on a ward in 1998 who survived, following surgery. Only one person older than Wilson has the rare condition in the UK.
Trainee nurse McQuade said: “Ever since Ian has come home it has been celebration after celebration.”
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