Caroline Wright
As a professional dancer Caroline Wright was accustomed to calling on her reserves of stamina to get her through rigorous routines.
So when she suddenly started to feel listless and exhausted by the simplest of tasks she instinctively knew something was wrong.
Caroline, who had been dancing since the age of two and performing in stage productions, was initially told by a GP in London that her feelings of lethargy were probably linked to her "being a little overweight."
The disquieting true diagnosis of her condition was only finally made known through a combination of her steely determination and persistence, and starting a job at the University of Southampton Medical School, where she related her symptoms to colleagues.
Caroline was referred to the Wessex Cardiac Centre at Southampton General Hospital, where it was established that she was suffering from "partial venous drainage" (PVD), a condition where the pulmonary veins are not properly connected. Her heart disease was causing one half of her heart to be dangerously over-stretched.
In the Spring of 2008 Caroline had open heart surgery to correct the PVD and her own tissue was used to repair an associated hole-in-the-heart.
"I spent 15 days in the Wessex Cardiac Centre because I developed complications as my oxygen levels would not rise. I was told that I had only been about two to three months away from requiring a heart transplant - sometimes what can happen is that the left atrium can rupture. In my case they caught it just at the right time," said Caroline, the creative director of Solo Events, one of the leading events agencies on the South Coast.
Caroline's health problems emerged abruptly in the summer of 2005 while she was living and working in London. "I started feeling very tired and would be worn out by merely walking upstairs or bringing shopping in from the car", she recollected. "At that time I was teaching dance eight hours a day. I couldn't carry on, so I went to see my GP and was told that it was probably due to me being a little overweight. I went off to try to lose some weight, but still felt terrible."
She recalled feeling so desperate that she admitted herself to the A&E department of King's Hospital in London, where routine tests were carried out which showed that everything was normal, with the exception of her chest X-ray which revealed an enlarged heart.
"I was advised to see a cardiologist, but the waiting list was nine months on the NHS in London, and so I went privately and spent a large sum of money seeing someone who diagnosed me with a heart valve problem that would probably require sorting out later on in life. So off I skipped thinking everything was fine, until I started to have dreadful heart palpitations one day while I was driving on the M25 and had to pull over on to the hard shoulder," she said.
Caroline, a past pupil of the Cantell School in Bassett, Southampton, decided to return home to Warsash to be near her parents, Vicky and Leslie. As well as the deterioration in her physical health, she was feeling psychologically vulnerable after she was affected by the July 7 terrorist bombings in 2005 in which 52 people were killed and more than 770 injured. Caroline had been on the train immediately behind the King's Cross to Russell Square tube in which 26 people lost their lives.
"Although I considered myself very fortunate not to have been directly involved, we were trapped underground for three hours and after that I felt emotionally scarred and unable to travel on the Tube any more," she admitted.
She returned home to Warsash, but continued to feel absolutely lethargic. "I was so very tired all the time; barely able to go out and if I had just one glass of wine I would feel paralytic! It was while I was working at the university medical school that I explained my symptoms and I subsequently underwent a MRI scan and was given an echocardiogram which confirmed the PVD," she said.
She was amazed at how quickly she bounced back from the major operation. Caroline was back at work after seven weeks - but concedes that was probably due to the fact that she runs her own businesses and couldn't afford not to return!
"I'm a very goal-orientated person and passionate about what I do," said Caroline, who is also a lecturer in performance and business management at the University of Winchester. It is testimony to her resolute character that Caroline decided to host a glittering champagne fundraising event in aid of Wessex Heartbeat - just 14 weeks after her open-heart surgery. She wanted to raise money - and awareness - for the campaign to provide a ward for young adults in the care of the Wessex Cardiac Centre.
"This ward would be a haven for young adults and mirror Ocean Ward, which is already at the hospital caring for children in a colourful, inviting and secure environment," she said.
Caroline paid tribute to the proactive way in which the Wessex Heartbeat charity operated, and singled out for special mention the Adults Congenital Liaison Nurses Linda Tellet and Melanie Finch for their dedication and support.
