A YOUNG mum who fought back from the brink of death just months after giving birth says she has been given a “second chance”.

Amy Ellis, who is from Allerton, faced a huge health ordeal last year when she had to undergo major heart transplant surgery.

She has now vowed to ‘live her best life’ for her donor after fearing she would never leave hospital and is now excited to see what the future holds.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: When Amy was in hospitalWhen Amy was in hospital

“Now I am finally here and alive it’s a blessing,” she said.

The 19-year-old has dilated cardiomyopathy - the condition many of her family also have and which has taken a devastating toll on them over the years - and has been on tablets for much of her life to keep it at bay.

It is a disease of the heart muscle, where it becomes stretched and thin.

This means it is unable to pump blood around the body effectively.

Amy fell seriously ill during her pregnancy and ended up being hospitalised and giving birth to her daughter, Ivy, via caesarean much earlier than expected as her body would not have been able to cope.

She received the terrifying news that if her pregnancy went any longer, she wasn’t going to make it.

Amy had a pacemaker fitted just two days later and was eventually able to go home.
She was loving every second of being a new mum, but her health began to fail once more.

At first, it was thought she had blood clots, but she then received the awful news that her heart had started to fail.

She was rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, renowned for its cardiac centre, and had a biventricular assist device fitted, which is a pump designed to help the heart function better when both sides are failing.

Amy described it as the “most painful” experience she had been through and while she was originally on the urgent heart transplant list, she was then moved to the super-urgent list while a huge machine kept her alive.

Then, a heart became available.

The major surgery went ahead, but in a tragic turn of events, her antibodies began attacking her heart, sending her into a very rare rejection and forcing her on to a life support machine.

“The doctors didn’t know what to do they had run out of options and everyone was brought to the hospital to say goodbye to me my daughter came to say goodbye to me, everyone I care about was outside that hospital that day,” she said.

Against the odds, Amy miraculously pulled through but said it was a “massive blur” as she came around from her brush with death. 

Unable to move anything from head to toe, she had to learn to walk again, but is now back at home with her partner Charlie and their baby girl.

She told the Telegraph & Argus: “Now I am home it’s great, I love being with my daughter and my boyfriend.

“I am getting stronger and stronger by the day, it has been so hard going through what I have been through but to see the outcome, to be home and be a mummy again is amazing and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

“Now I am finally here and alive it’s a blessing. I never thought I was going to leave hospital.”

She described the nurses who looked after her as “amazing”.

“I feel positive I haven’t had any rejections, my bloods have been great,” she added.

“I’m excited to see what the future holds for me, because god didn’t give me a second chance for no reason and I am so grateful to my donor.

“I’ll make sure I live my best life for them, giving me a fresh chance to be a mummy and a daughter, a friend, a sister.”