2023-07-03 21:10:00
A Scottish mother who received a heart transplant has told how her six-year-old daughter saved her life twice using a virtual assistant.
Emma Anderson, from Glasgow, was 15 years old when she was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
From a very young age, her daughter Darcey knew her mother had a “soft heart” and was taught how to ask for help through her Alexa device.
So far the girl used the device twice to report that her 27-year-old mother was not feeling well.
“I set up Alexa so that if I passed out or wasn’t feeling well, all I had to do was say, ‘Alexa, ask for help.’and I would contact my mother, who lives around the corner,” the mother said.
Getty Images The woman taught her little girl to ask the Alexa device for help in case she couldn’t.
Putting what you have learned to the test
Anderson recounted that her daughter had to put her training to use on more than one occasion.
“He’s had to call Alexa a few times, once even calling an ambulance himself. On that occasion I was very bad,” he said.
“I am very proud of her, she is a little superstar,” the mother told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland program, where she explained her condition.
“My condition was described to me as follows: it is as if my heart, instead of beating against a cushion, was beating against a brick wall, so it was getting more and more damaged“, he explained.
Throughout her life, the woman managed her condition with medication, but during a routine check-up she was told that she urgently needed a heart transplant to save her life.
“I went for my routine checkup and they told me my heart had gotten really bad and I couldn’t wait any longer on the regular waiting list. I had to get on an urgent list because basically If I left the hospital, I wouldn’t have much time left.“, he recounted.
“Within a few months my heart completely failed. I ended up with a balloon pump that kept my heart pumping until hopefully we got a transplant.”he narrated.
“And then about 10 days after that, we got a call saying there was a donor heart available,” he added.
PA Media Scottish singer Tom Walker invited Anderson to record a video, along with other people who went through difficult situations in their lives.
Learning to live
Anderson received the transplant in April 2022 at the Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank, southwest Scotland.
When he was first diagnosed, an internal defibrillator was implanted in his chest, which “went off” three times in the past year.
The mother said the heart transplant had been transformative and she was able to marry her partner Conner last July.
“Since my transplant, Now I have a whole new life”he claimed.
“I can walk to school and pick up Darcey and walk back, something I’ve never been able to do before,” she said.
“Over Easter, I managed to take Darcey swimming, to the park, and to a farm. Simple things I couldn’t do before, I can do now. Now I can be a real mom“, he asserted.
About 28,000 Scots suffer from heart problems. The most common condition is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, according to the British Journal of Cardiology.
Getty Images 28,000 Scots suffer from heart problems, according to data from scientific authorities.
a steep path
Anderson expressed his eternal gratitude to his donor and his family.
“Getting a transplant is a very hard road, it is not easy”said.
“I was on life support and all kinds of other treatments after my operation for a long time, and my muscles deteriorated so much that I couldn’t walk anymore,” he explained.
“The only thing that seemed to matter to me once I was better was learning to walk again. so I can walk down the aisle of church and get married”said.
“I was literally discharged a little over a week before the wedding, still had stitches walking down the aisle“.
While recovering in hospital, Anderson made a TikTok video of images from different stages of his convalescence using Scottish star Tom Walker’s song, The Best Is Yet to Come (“The best is yet to come”).
The singer was so moved by the audiovisual that he invited the mother to London to appear in another video with people who had inspired him.
“Tom contacted me and asked me to come to London and be a part of his music video to raise awareness.”recounted.
The woman did not hesitate to describe her situation as “horrible” and admitted that there are no words with which to thank her donor’s family for their gesture.
For his part, Gordon James, director of the hospital that performed the transplant, said: “As we celebrate 75 years of the National Health Service (NHS), Emma’s inspiring story shows us how valuable and crucial the care the institution provides is. “.
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