The organ is on display at the Hunterian Museum in London.
In one of the strangest reunions ever, a woman recently visited a museum to see her own heart, which was removed from her body 16 years ago during life-saving transplant surgery. BBC reported. Jennifer Sutton, who hails from Ringwood in Hampshire, stated that it was “incredibly surreal” to see her own organ on display at the Hunterian Museum in London.
“From the moment you first walk in, you think, ‘That used to be in my body,'” she said. “But it’s also kind of fun — it’s like my friend.” It kept me alive for 22 years and I’m actually quite proud of it. I’ve seen a lot of things in jars in my life, but it’s really weird to think that this is really mine,” she added.
She expressed how she hopes it would support organ donation, which she described as “the greatest gift possible”. She told the BBC that she now leads an active and busy life and intends to ‘keep myself busy as long as possible’.
When Mrs. Sutton first discovered she had difficulty with moderate exercise, such as climbing hills, she was a 22-year-old university student. She was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy, a health condition that limits the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body. Doctors told her she would die if she didn’t get a transplant.
In June 2007, she received the life-changing news that a match had been found.
“I remember waking up after the transplant and thinking, ‘Oh my god, I’m actually a new person. I remember dancing a little double thumbs up for my family and saying, ‘I made it, I made it,” she said.
Mrs Sutton subsequently allowed the Royal College of Surgeons to use her heart for an exhibition and it is now on public display at the museum in Holborn.
She said she wanted to take steps to promote organ donation, adding that it enabled life-defining moments like her marriage. She went on to say she wanted to urge others to live life to the fullest and encouraged everyone to put off plans to “do it today”.
