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My hubby with a broken heart

There was only one thing keeping my desperately-ill hubby alive...


Published by: Rebecca Rampling & Jai Breitnauer
Published on: 7th July 2011

My friends always said I wore my heart on my sleeve, so I couldn’t understand why Cupid kept missing with his bow. Since I signed up to an online matchmaking site, date after date had ended in disaster.
Until I met Ben Hughes, 28. Tall, handsome and cuddly, he was just my type…
‘You’ve won my heart good and proper,’ I grinned to him one night after we’d been seeing each other for
a few weeks.
‘I’m glad!’ Ben grinned. ‘I’ll give you mine – as long as you handle it with care.’
‘Of course I will!’ I snorted, but his face had turned serious.
‘There’s something that I need to tell you,’ he sighed. ‘I was born with a heart defect, so my heartbeat occasionally falls out of rhythm and then I have to have it corrected.’
‘Is it serious?’ I gasped.
‘In the grand scheme of things, no,’ Ben smiled at me. ‘But it’s not very nice.’
He went on to tell me how they used resuscitation paddles to bounce his heart back into a proper rhythm. ‘I’ve got to have it done in a few weeks actually,’ he sighed.
‘Well, I’m here for you,’ I smiled, squeezing his hand.
Ben’s procedure went well, and we carried on with life as normal. After a year together, he asked me to move in and, six months after that, he cornered me in the bedroom one night.
‘Marry me, Ayla,’ he whispered softly, taking me in his arms. ‘I love you, and want you to be my wife.’
It was so out of the blue, I thought he was joking at first! But he was deadly serious.
‘Yes!’ I grinned.
‘Yes, yes, yes!’
We booked a venue for the following June, we were in no rush.
But a couple of months later Ben started feeling breathless and dizzy when he walked up stairs.
He was referred back to a heart surgeon, who said they’d need to fit a pacemaker.
‘At least it will sort this out once and for all,’ Ben told me.
The operation at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield went well. But a week later, he showed me a small mark that was above his scarring.
‘It almost looks green,’ he said, screwing up his face.
‘If it’s not painful, leave it alone,’ I scolded. But the next day, he called me from his job as a cash officer at a telecoms company.
‘I showed that mark to one of the lads, and he thinks it should be checked,’ he said. ‘Looks like there are wires coming out of it.’
Wires?! I picked him up, drove him straight to the heart institute where he was examined.
‘I’m afraid you’re rejecting the pacemaker,’ the consultant said. ‘Those wires are your body pushing the device out through your scar.’
They couldn’t correct the problem, so they agreed to monitor Ben. But by the time his assessment came round, he felt like he permanently had mild flu.
‘That’s because your heart is starting to affect your other organs,’ the consultant said gravely.
‘So, what’s the next step?’ he shrugged. ‘Medication? Or another op?’
The consultant looked at me and then back at Ben.
‘Mr Hughes, you’re seriously ill,’ he explained. ‘You urgently need a heart and lung transplant.’
‘A what!’ I cried, mouth open. Ben looked at the consultant, steely-eyed.
‘What if I don’t want one, or you can’t find a donor?’ he asked.
The consultant shook his head. ‘I’d give you six months to live.’
Together, we walked to the car in a daze. Two years ago, Ben had a minor heart defect – now it was killing him. He wouldn’t even live to see our wedding, let alone enjoy a long life with me.
As the realisation hit me that I was probably going to lose him, I sobbed.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Ben said, trying to keep my spirits up. ‘I don’t feel like I’ve only got six months.’
But within a couple of weeks, he had to give up his job because he couldn’t manage the stairs. A month later, his body was covered with pustules and sores as his organs began shutting down.
Just six weeks after the diagnosis he was in a wheelchair and needed oxygen to breathe.
‘I’m sorry you have to do this,’ Ben wheezed one night as I washed and dressed his sores for the third time. ‘I wanted you to be my wife, not my carer.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, holding back tears. Our wedding was booked for June, but I knew Ben wouldn’t make it.
‘I mean it,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘I want you to be my wife. Let’s bring the wedding forward.’
Looking into his brown eyes, I nodded tearfully. We needed something to look forward to…
We set the new date for February 3, just three months away. Along with the change-the-date cards, we sent out organ donor leaflets. 
In fact, that became the theme of the wedding, even asking people to sign the organ donor register instead of a guest book.
On the day, I was so nervous. Despite what he’d been through, Ben looked gorgeous in his suit. Leaning on a stick, he managed to stand while I walked up the aisle.
For the service, we sat in thrones at the front of Holy Spirit Church in Shrewsbury. Afterwards, at the reception, I made a speech instead of Ben.
‘I’ve not married the man I can live with, but the man I can’t live without,’ I said tearfully. ‘Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.’
It was an amazing day, but there was no honeymoon. The next morning, I was back to bathing and dressing Ben, back to hoping for a miracle.
A month after the wedding, the phone rang. It was the hospital.
‘Ben!’ I gasped. ‘They’ve found you a donor, they’re sending an ambulance.’
Throwing his things into a bag, I didn’t even have time to be worried or scared. This was our only chance.
He was in theatre for 11 hours and, finally, the surgeon came out to see me. ‘It went well,’ he said, smiling. ‘But I don’t know how your husband was still alive.’
He described to me how Ben’s broken heart had been the size of a rugby ball, it was so swollen from working too hard. And there was more, too…
‘As we lifted it from his body, it literally disintegrated,’ the surgeon said. ‘He was minutes from death.’
You couldn’t get closer than that. When Ben came round, I told him. ‘We were living on borrowed time,’ I sobbed.
‘No, your love kept me alive,’ Ben grinned. ‘You’re my wife-support machine!’
Ben will never fully recover from his ordeal. He’ll be on medication for the rest of his life, and the risk of rejection or illness means he can no longer play sports, or go to the gigs he loved.
But we’ve replaced those with romantic nights in, or walks along the seafront followed by fish and chips. Next year, we’re going to renew our vows, and take our long-awaited honeymoon to Portugal.
I can’t wait to declare publicly that Ben’s new heart is all mine.
Ayla Hughes, 23, Shrewsbury, Shropshire