Kate Ball

Kate is one of our Scottish advocates. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband and received a new heart 10 years ago.

Kate was in her second year at Edinburgh University when she was told she needed a heart transplant. It came as a huge shock as she had never suffered any serious health problems and had no history of heart disease in her family. Kate was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy – a condition which attacks the muscles in the heart and stops it from pumping blood efficiently around the rest of the body.

Nobody can say for sure what caused Kate’s condition, but it was most likely the result of an auto-immune reaction to an everyday flu type virus. Once she’d been diagnosed in January 2001, Kate was transferred from her local hospital to a specialist ward at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. The doctors were honest with Kate –although they would try drug therapy to treat the cardiomyopathy, a heart transplant was her best chance of survival.

Although her condition was stabilised, the illness meant Kate’s life was very different from the one she had been living before. She was forced to put her studies on hold and move back in with her parents – not a prospect relished by any 19 year old. Her daily routine consisted of blood tests and hospital check-ups and not a lot else.

Cardiomyopathy affects each person differently, but by the time Kate was diagnosed her liver had swollen to twice its normal size, leaving her with an incredibly painful, bloated stomach that meant she felt too full to eat. Her lungs had begun to fill with fluid which caused terrible coughing fits and left her very breathless. Just getting dressed in the morning left Kate so exhausted she would need to lie down for half an hour to recover.

In the months following her diagnosis, Kate’s condition began to deteriorate and she was forced to spend more and more time in hospital. In April 2001 she was taken by ambulance to the Freeman to be assessed for transplant. By then Kate was so weak she was immediately placed on the active list, and the wait for a new heart began.

It took just eight days for a suitable heart to become available – which was just in the nick of time as Kate had developed pneumonia in one of her lungs and was on the cusp of being too ill to survive the operation. But the operation went ahead on May 12 2001 and was a success. Within a few hours of the transplant Kate was awake and talking to the nurses in intensive care. In fact, in true student style when the nurses offered Kate a drink she asked for Jack Daniels.

Less than a month after the operation Kate was well enough to return to her parents’ home in the Scottish Borders. Her recovery was very quick, and she was able to move back to Edinburgh and resume her studies that September.

Since her transplant Kate has gone on to gain two degrees, travel extensively and last year married her long term partner Chris. She works as freelance journalist in both print and radio broadcasting. Kate knows that she owes the quality of life she now enjoys to her donor, and wants to help spread the word about organ donation.

Kate wants more people to actively think through signing the organ donation register, good intentions aren’t enough. Kate finds apathy the most frustrating thing in the world, so hopes through fundraising and awareness events she can inspire people to put those good intentions into action and sign up.

As well as doing her first 10k run this summer, Kate is planning to head to South America at the end of the year to hike the Patagonian trail to raise funds for Live Life Then Give Life. 2012 will be Kate’s first year as an advocate and she hopes that by spreading the word more people can be offered a precious second chance at life like she was.