Torrington ICU Ward

As many of you may know, Mum had to have a mechanical valve fitted on her heart in February of this year. The surgery went well and she was 6 weeks into recovery when out of no where she crashed and went into multi-organ failure due to an infection that had set around the site of this new valve. She was whisked from Treliske Hospital on the 25th March to Torrington Cardiac Ward at Derriford. From the morning of the 25th, my family and i were told Mums chances of surviving were very slim due to the infection already causing her major organs to fail and the sac around her heart having a lot of fluid build up. Mums was put on a dialysis machine for her Kidneys, intubated as she couldn’t breathe for herself and her Liver had failed. Her blood wasn’t clotting and was struggling to be pumped around her body as her blood pressure was so low and her arteries/veins were so dilated that they were struggling to do their job. She also had to be shocked numerous times due to her heart rhythm going out of sync and threatening to give up. However, thanks to the superb care and treatment of the staff from Torrington ward and life saving surgery, the team managed to operate and remove the majority of the infection from around the heart giving Mum that fighting chance that she needed to start to recover. After a few nail biting days of us sat around her hospital bed and sleeping on the doctors office floor during the worst 24hours, she began to turn a corner and spent 2 weeks in Torrington ICU before being transferred back to Treliske where she spent the next 12 or so weeks recovering.

Theres still a long road to go but without the incredible work of the most caring, compassionate and dedicated team at Torrington, Mum may not of been with us now so we would love to raise some money for this ward specifically!