London: Call it bizarre, incredible, surreal or what you wish, but it did happen for real.
A woman recently saw her own heart which was on display at the Hunterian Museum here in what was one of the strangest ‘reunions’ ever.
Jennifer Sutton had her heart removed in what was a life-saving transplant surgery 16 years ago, BBC reported.
Now leading an active and busy life after more than a decade and half, Jennifer had an ‘incredibly surreal’ feeling when she visited the museum to see her own organ placed as an exhibit.
“The minute you first walk in, you think, ‘That used to be inside my body’. But it’s quite nice too — it’s like my friend. It kept me alive for 22 years and I’m quite proud of it really. I’ve seen lots of things in jars in my lifetime but to think that’s actually mine is very weird,” remarked Jennifer, who hails from Ringwood in Hampshire.
She hoped it would support organ donation, which she described as ‘the greatest gift possible.’
It was as a 22-year-old university student that Jennifer first discovered she had difficulty with moderate exercise activity like walking up hills. On consulting a doctor, she was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy — a health condition that restricts the ability of the heart to pump blood around the body.
Doctors told her that she would survive only if she received a transplant.
A match was found in June 2007.
“I remember waking up after the transplant and thinking ‘Oh my goodness I am actually a new person’. I remember doing a little double thumbs up dance to my family and saying ‘I made it I made it’,” she recalled.
She gave permission to Royal College of Surgeons to let her heart be displayed, so it’s there for all to see at the museum in Holborn.
