Jodie Higgins, 34, from West Derby, has taken her first steps on prosthetic legs after waking from a three-week coma to find both legs and two fingers on her left hand amputated. The mum of one fell into a coma during a heart transplant in November last year and developed sepsis, leading to necrosis.
The medical journey
Jodie was diagnosed with Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy in 2015 after collapsing at the gym. This rare genetic disease causes the heart to replace muscle cells with fat and scar tissue. She received an implantable defibrillator but eventually went into complete heart failure. She was admitted to Wythenshawe Hospital in October and underwent transplant surgery in November. The donor heart failed to start, and she spent three and a half weeks in a coma.
She told the Liverpool Echo: “I was basically being kept alive by a machine. In the first week I suffered multiple organ failure and sepsis. When I finally woke up after three and a half weeks I was still out of it, and the only words I can remember were 'you're going to lose your legs'.”
Amputation and recovery
Her feet and fingers turned black and necrotic. She had surgery to amputate both legs below the knee in January. Six months later, she received prosthetics from the Specialised Ability Centre in Manchester. She said: “Once all my wounds were healed properly I got my moulds done and my first set of prosthetics made. On the first day I came out of the bars and I was walking with sticks, so they were quite shocked.”
She still uses a wheelchair but tries to be on her feet as much as possible. She added: “Some days I'll be in absolute agony and I can't even put the legs on. Some days I'm fine. The goal is to get them working full time.”
Completing the Manchester 10K
Last month, Jodie completed the 10K AJ Bell Great Manchester Run on her new prosthetics, alongside her partner Karl and son Koa. She raised £7,000 for the British Heart Foundation. She said: “I'm better off now. Even though it's hard with the prosthetics, I'm in a better condition than I was before. I wake up in the morning and I don't feel scared any more. I have energy now.”
Reflecting on her decision, she said: “If I got a chance to turn back time and choose, knowing this would be the outcome, I would still go through with it. Now I can have a life with my son. If I didn't have the transplant, I probably would have only lived another year. I definitely wouldn't change what has happened. As hard as it is sometimes, I'd never change it.”
