Tanesha Ives has received the most “amazing” gift ever – a successful heart transplant which has allowed her to return home in time for Christmas.
Tanesha, 12, was born with atrioventricular septal defect, a condition that created holes between the right and left sides of her heart.
She needed open heart surgery when she was five weeks old and had four pacemaker operations, so by the time medics took the difficult decision to do a risky heart transplant in October, Tanesha begged: “I don’t want to go to sleep again mummy. Stop them. Help me”.
But now mum Amanda Bell is glad they went ahead as Tanesha is back home with her in Barnsley, South Yorks.
And Tanesha said: “It was great to go home for Christmas and be a normal kid.”
Mum-of-four Amanda, 47, said: “We are grateful to the donor, and we think about them every day. This wouldn’t have happened without their family.
“It’s such a relief to have Tanesha home for Christmas. That’s all we were aiming for – just to have her home and to have Christmas, just me and my girls at home together on Christmas morning.”
Amanda finally got the call that a donor heart was available on October 25.
She said: “They rang me up at 6.45am and told me to get to the ward for 8am. I didn’t find out until 11.15am that it was going to be a go. At 2.15pm, all the surgeons came for her. I was scared, I was crying, I was a mess, to be honest.
“But I was trying to keep calm for her. Tanesha was screaming – she’s 12 so she knew some of the risks. It was hard to watch.
“But she came out of the surgery fighting.”
Single mum Amanda is now fundraising to try to recover costs incurred while Tanesha was in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.
- To donate, go to: gofundme.com/f/taneshas-travel-and-memories-fund
