Taken to the brink of death

Shelly Rowney, 55, had to go through the unimaginable in order to survive

- FRANCES LEATE

My hands resting in my lap, I felt my chest rise and fall in time with my laboured breathing as I listened, wide-eyed, to my consultant. He sat in front of me drawing a picture of my lungs on a piece of paper, explaining how most of the arteries that should be pumping oxygen and blood around my body were blocked.

‘It’s very serious,’ he said, outlining the affected areas with his pencil, explaining how it was only a matter of time before the clogged arteries caused my blood pressure to rise, putting pressure on my heart that would prove fatal. It was June 2019 and, after becoming breathless and light-headed while working as a care assistant, I’d been sent for an MRI scan – but I wasn’t expecting to be told my body was on the verge of failing.

I immediately thought of my husband, Phil, then 68, and my beloved Yorkshire terrier-cross, Rambo, at home. I’d spent 25 years with Phil, and thought of his four grown-up kids and three grandchildren as my own, so my first worry was how my family would cope. Only as I started playing out scenes, imagining the different ways I might tell them, the consultant gave me a glimmer of hope.

‘There is a procedure we could try,’ he said. It was called a pulmonary endarterectomy (PTE) – but when he explained what it involved, I felt my body flinching.

The only hope

The surgeon would have to freeze my body to 20C in order to save brain functionality, then stop my heart on the operating table. Then, my body would be drained of blood, every last drop. I’d technically be dead for up to 20 minutes while he drained each of my blocked arteries before refilling me with blood.