At the age of 18, Sam Rudland was diagnosed with a serious heart condition called Friedreich’s Ataxia, which causes a thickening of the heart muscle.
Told he probably would not live past 35, he was determined to live life to the full and was delighted when he met psychologist Amy Watts through a dating app in 2012.
They quickly fell in love and had daughter Esmee together in December 2013.
But as his family grew, his health problems were an ongoing battle and he was constantly in and out of the hospital.
With attention focused on caring for Sam, the couple were completely floored when Amy discovered a lump in her breast in February 2016 and she was diagnosed with cancer.
The couple, from Bristol, was worried that they would both get worse and leave Esmee without parents.
But in May 2017, Sam’s health improved enough for him to receive a heart transplant.
Sadly, Amy’s health deteriorated and in February 2019, she was told her cancer was terminal.
The couple decided to push ahead with their wedding but Amy’s cancer continued to spread.
She was admitted to a hospice and they decided to scale back their plans and wanted to get married there with a few guests on April 3.
Sadly, two days before their wedding, Amy passed away, leaving Sam and Esmee heartbroken.
Sam, who also has a son, Tobias, 11, from a previous relationship, said: ‘Amy was an incredible mum to Esmee, who is the most precious, amazing little girl.
‘It is a very cruel twist of fate that she so badly wanted to be a mum, then had it snatched away.
‘We probably had two good years together which weren’t plagued by illness. They were as close to perfect as you could expect.
‘Esmee has wonderful memories of Amy, but I worry they’ll fade. She’s come so close to losing both parents, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
When they met, Sam was honest with Amy about his Friedrich’s Ataxia – which the NHS describes as a genetic condition affecting one in every 50,000 people in the UK.
While symptoms can include balance and coordination difficulties, slurred speech, increased weakness in the legs, vision loss and diabetes, his real problems only began in his late 20s, after starting medication for inflammation of the heart muscle.
Abnormal heart rhythms followed in his early 30s, leading to a harrowing prediction that he would not live past 35, making him ineligible for a heart transplant.
Still, Sam, who uses a wheelchair outside his house, remained positive, saying: ‘I knew what came with having the condition – but never thought it would happen to me.’
Life looked up in July 2012, when he met Amy, and in June 2013 he moved from Cardiff to Bristol and they bought a house together.
Sam proposed at the end of 2014, but they were reluctant to make wedding plans because his health got worse.
He said: ‘My heart rate would get to 140bpm, rather than the normal 60 to 100bpm, so I’d regularly end up in hospital.
‘I had five cardioversions, where an electric shock delivered from a defibrillator is used to restore the heart’s rhythm to normal.
‘I also had two cardiac ablations – procedures where surgeons burn away areas of the heart to destroy the tissue allowing incorrect electrical signals to cause the abnormal heart rhythms. Sadly, they didn’t work.
‘In November 2015, I was fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), which uses an electrical signal to regulate my heartbeat.’
But there was more bad news for the couple, when Amy was diagnosed with cancer, which had spread to her lymph nodes in October 2016.
Sam recalled: ‘We were totally shocked – but convinced the treatment would work. We even discussed having another child when she was better.’
In November that year, Amy had her right breast removed, followed by a three-week round of chemotherapy, then radiotherapy a month later.
Then, in March 2017, Sam was hospitalised with intense swelling of his feet, fluid retention and dangerously low blood pressure – all linked to his heart.
Constantly in and out of hospital, Sam, then 39, asked doctors if they would reconsider a transplant.
Fortunately, his results from a five-week assessment at Cambridge’s Royal Papworth Hospital, combined with the fact he had exceeded his life expectancy, made him eligible – leading to a successful six-hour heart transplant operation in May 2017.
But in November 2017, rushed to hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest, it took 10 minutes of CPR to stabilise Sam and, fearing his body was rejecting the donor organ, a balloon was fitted in his heart to prevent valve blockages.
He was also hooked up to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, to deliver oxygen to his blood.
‘The ECMO saved my life, but it damaged the femoral artery in my right leg, which started bleeding internally, causing necrosis – or the death of body tissue – in my skin,’ he said.
Hospitalised over Christmas, he was left with a hole in his leg, which he could still lose if a blood clot develops.
Sam said: ‘I spent Christmas attached to machines keeping me alive, but despite all she was going through, Amy was always there in person – or on the phone.
‘Things were feeling bleak for me at the time, and she really lifted my spirits and gave me hope.’
He was released from the hospital in January 2018, but by then Amy’s cancer had spread to her bones. She was still having treatment every three weeks but a year later, they told her that they needed to stop treatment as her white blood cell count was very low.
She also had a tumour the ‘size of a small child’s head’ in her liver and in February, they were told that her cancer was terminal.
‘It was devastating,’ said Sam. ‘Amy had been given a death sentence, while I had been given a chance with my new heart.
‘She was so upset thinking she wouldn’t see Esmee grow up, graduate and get married.
‘She wanted to have the same last name as Esmee, so we planned our wedding for the end of April.
‘Amy bought her wedding dress and we booked a boutique hotel near Bristol for the ceremony.
‘A photographer offered to work for free because of our situation and, not wanting a traditional wedding cake, Amy ordered 60 slabs of fudge.’
Towards the end of March 2019, in considerable pain, Amy asked to be taken to St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol.
Sam recalled: ‘I thought Amy would spend a few days in the hospice, then come home.
‘But her liver was pressing against her stomach and diaphragm, causing pain and breathing problems.
‘Luckily St Peter’s is an amazing place and Esmee was able to see her mum every day before being looked after by her grandparents.’
As Amy got worse, Sam cancelled the wedding and decided to book a registrar to marry them at the hospice the following week, on April 3, with room for 10 guests.
But by 31 March, which was Mothering Sunday – just days before the wedding – Amy was fading rapidly.
‘Esmee visited, giving her a Mother’s Day card, but Amy didn’t even register what was happening. She was drifting in and out of consciousness,’ said Sam.
‘The last thing she said to me that Sunday was, “Please don’t leave me on my own”.
‘I slept that night in the armchair in her room. The following morning, she would not respond to anything.
‘I sat there holding her hand and, over the course of an hour and a half, her breathing just slowed down and stopped. She didn’t seem in pain and it was very peaceful at the end.’
Sam then told Esmee her mummy had gone.
He said: ‘She knew she wasn’t well – in the January her teachers had asked her to write down a prayer and she put, ‘Please God make my mummy better.’
‘Like all of us, Esmee struggled to accept Amy was going to die. Because she’d seen the doctors sort me out, she expected that for her mummy too.’
Movingly, when Amy was cremated on April 24 at Memorial Woodlands, Bristol, she was dressed in her white lace-necked bridal gown.
Recalling seeing her beforehand at the funeral home, Sam said: ‘It was very difficult, but she looked beautiful.’
Now Sam, who thanked hospice staff for their ‘amazing care,’ says six-year-old Esmee is his reason for living.
‘She has been a complete rock,’ he said. ‘She misses her mum so much, but we talk about her all the time and have a shelf with pictures of Amy on it.
‘Luckily, I have a lot of support from Amy’s mum, who lives close by as, with my Ataxia, I worry about having a setback in case I’m not here for Esmee.’
Sam only knows that his heart donor was a man in his early 20s but remains eternally grateful to him and his family.
He said: ‘I wrote them a letter as there’s barely an hour in the day when I don’t think about what they’ve done for me.
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‘If they knew that I’m still here to look after Esmee because of them, I hope they would be really proud of themselves and of their son.’
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/13/dad-saved-heart-transplant-loses-fiancee-cancer-48-hours-wedding-12047847/
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