A widow retrained as a nurse after being inspired by the care her terminally-ill husband received.
Louise, 29, was married and widowed in just a few short weeks as heart transplant patient Dave, 32, died. But Louise never forgot how the organ transplant nurses made his journey as easy for him as possible.
Louise, from Wigan, said nurses laid out tealights to create an aisle on the day of their wedding - and in his final hours wheeled in a DVD player so the family could watch their little boy George's favourite film, The Lion King.
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Louise met Dave in 2012. Dave was born with a transposition of the great arteries, where the two main blood vessels leaving the heart are back to front. He even collapsed on one of their early dates and was taken to hospital by ambulance.
Their son George was born in 2016 but Dave fell seriously ill the next year. In February 2018, a heart was found and he was rushed to Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital for the operation – but things soon took a turn for the worse.
Louise told the Mirror : “A transplant co-ordinator and one of his nurses came and I just knew when I saw their faces that something wasn’t right. When they took him off the bypass the heart was working, but he was bleeding and they gave him a drug to stop it. The donor heart had a reaction and stopped working.
“They brought him out and he was on full life support. He wasn’t breathing by himself. They said the next 24 hours were critical and didn’t think he’d make it through that.”
Dave fell into a coma and medics told Louise familiar sounds might stir him. She had a Ewan the Sheep toy which plays soothing noises to help babies fall asleep. Dave began to squeeze the toy every time Louise turned it on - and after two weeks woke up.
Louise said: “I just told him I loved him. They said he’d be in hospital for a year. When Dave started talking and we told him this, straight away he said, ‘Will you marry me?’ We always said if anything went wrong during the transplant, we’d get married in intensive care.”
She walked along the corridors of intensive care to Ed Sheeran's Perfect and the couple said their vows in front of just eight guests. She added: “It was brilliant. The sister made a reception room with food and a cake. They put tealights in the rooms and in the corridors so I could walk up it with my dad.
“It was lovely. It was after we left the hospital and went for a meal, then it hit me. I thought, ‘I’ve got married, but I’m not spending the wedding with my husband, because he’s in hospital’. Reality hits. It was sad.”
Dave began to improve and started having physio in the hope of a second transplant. But soon it became clear he would never make a full recovery. Dave made the decision to switch off his life support after he had several days with Louise and George.
Louise said: “Intensive care were brilliant. They got us a big double bed for his room and a TV with a DVD player, so we could watch Lion King with George in bed. Family said their goodbyes the following morning.
“Then we had some time, me, him and George. I said, ‘I think you need your painkillers now’. He said, ‘I really do’. He was crying in pain.”
After receiving his medication, Dave fell into a deep sleep. His life support was turned off 90 minutes later and he died within seconds.
Inspired by the help the nurses who cared for Dave gave the family, Louise made the decision to retrain. The former nursery nurse now hopes to eventually work with transplant patients. She said: “It was just the little things the nurses and doctors did which made it so comfortable for Dave. That always sticks in my mind.
“They made it a nicer experience. It wasn’t traumatic, he was comfortable, he didn’t suffer. After Dave passed, I took a couple of months off work and I thought, ‘Why can’t I be a nurse?’ I did a college course to get into university.
“In lockdown, I had to occupy George while the classes were on in the background and do my assignments when he went to bed. I qualified this month and it’s my ultimate goal to become involved in transplant nursing. I was a student during Covid, so I was in at the deep end. When families weren’t allowed in, I sat with a patient and held her hand.
“I knew she was going to pass. It took me back – it was quite a young person.”
Louise has found new love and is engaged to childhood friend Alex Jukes, 27. George is six next month and is thrilled Louise has become a nurse.
Louise, who is about to start at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan, said: “Last week, when I finished my last placement, he said, ‘You are a proper nurse, not half a nurse. I’m so proud of you finishing school’.”
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