‘My heart is broken so I mend others'

Katie Miller, 23, from Putney, London, tells new how she became a cardiac physiologist after being born with a hole in her heart and living with a pacemaker

- KIM WILLIS

Before I was born, my mum was warned there was something wrong with my heart. At the 20-week scan they found a congenital heart block, which meant there was a disruption to the electrical system that ensures the heart beats at a certain pace.

My heart rate was half what it should have been. Tests at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital revealed my mum, Kelly, now 47, had the autoimmune condition lupus, which was the cause of my heart block.

I wasn’t doing well in the womb, so I was born by C-section five weeks early, in May 1997. Further tests picked up I had a hole in my heart.

Doctors wanted to wait to see if it closed by itself. But it didn’t, so when I was one, I had my first heart surgery to close the hole.

The operation was a success, but there was still a problem with my heart rate. It was beating at around 40 beats per minute and should have been at least twice that. As blood wasn’t pumping efficiently around my body, I was a blue child – my family liked to joke that I looked like a Smurf. I was always sleepy and sluggish and I couldn’t go to nursery because I couldn’t keep up with the other kids.

I needed a pacemaker to ensure my heart rate never dropped below a certain pace, but specialists are reluctant to give pacemakers to infants because of the size of them compared to the size of the baby. If possible, it’s better to wait until the child is a little older.