Emily - heart recipient, NSW

Emily holding her son
"Words cannot express the gratitude I feel to the unintentional hero who saved my life, and kept my family together”. 

Six weeks after giving birth to Hudson, Emily’s world came crashing around her when she discovered she needed a new heart. 

She was struggling to walk from the living room to her bedroom without being out of breath. At times she would gasp for air, she lost her appetite and there were multiple occasions where she thought she was going to faint. 

Tests showed that she had peripartum cardiomyopathy – a form of heart failure that happens up to five months after giving birth. 

Luck was on her side, and after just a week and a half on the emergency transplant waitlist, she received a perfect heart match. 

“I don’t really think of it as someone else’s heart,” she says. “It is my heart, but it just took a different journey to becoming my heart. Words cannot express the gratitude I feel to the unintentional hero who saved my life, and kept my family together”. 

We want all Australians to talk about organ and tissue donation. If you want to be a donor, make sure you tell your family and friends.

Registering is easy and only takes one minute. All you need is your phone, Medicare card and one minute to register.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, your medical history, your lifestyle, what country you’re from or how healthy you are — you can still register as an organ and tissue donor.

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