New lease of life for “piggy-back” heart Hannah

By Humphrey Carter HANNAH Clark is not only lucky to be enjoying a family holiday in Majorca - she is also lucky to be alive. The case of 13-year-old Hannah has been grabbing the headlines across the world after a life-saving and pioneering operation to reverse a heart transplant has given the young teenager a new lease of life. Hannah is one of six children from Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital who have been invited down to Majorca to enjoy tonight's Pirates Adventure charity premiere and a week's family holiday by Thomson Holidays. Hannah, from Mountain Ash in the Welsh Valleys was diagnosed with cardiomyopthy, an “enlarged” heart, when she was just ten months old, her father Paul told The Bulletin yesterday. Aged just two years old, she underwent a desperately needed operation at Harfield Hospital in London to connect a donor “piggy-back” heart next to her enlarged heart to help ease the pressure and the strain. “At the time no one knew what the chances of success were, back in the year 2000 doctors gave her just 12 hours to live. But she's a fighter and has spent the past decade proving the doctors wrong. “They can't quite believe Hannah's improvement and success and life is starting to become slightly easier. “All along we as a family have tried to get on with life as best as possible taking things easy and everything is one step at a time, you can't force these things,” said Paul. In February, Hannah's piggy-back heart was removed at Great Ormond Street Hospital as her body has gradually started to reject it after ten years. However, surgeons managed to remove the piggy-back heart and restart her dormant one. The procedure was the first of its kind in the U K and, doctors claim, in the world. The operation took less than four hours and Hannah was home in five days. Doctors believe that Hannah's natural heart recovered sufficiently over the last ten years to be able to start functioning as a working organ once again. While Hannah laughed and joked with her brother Daniel, elder sister Amy and mother Elizabeth, Paul said that Hannah is off all the heavy anti-rejection drugs she has been taking and has recently returned to school. “We try to let her do whatever she wants, just like the rest of the other kids. “The outlook for the future is much more positive than ever and the crucial test will come in February next year when they carry out their final examination to see how her heart has been working on its own for this year. “We all went on holiday to America last year, we didn't know whether there would be time for another family trip. But here we are in Majorca and we're trying to raise funds to take Hannah back to the States next year. “She loved it there,” said Elizabeth. “Nobody thought she would be like she is now,” Hannah's mother added. Hannah's success story has travelled the world. Apart from mail and cards, including birthday cards she was 13 on Monday, from fellow Welsh living abroad, she also receives mail from patients suffering from a similar condition.