The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away

by Cole Moreton

  Now that he knows I’m not going to laugh at him or call him daft, Marc has something to confess. ‘I do talk to Martin. Rather than to the heart, do you know what I mean? As though he’s still around. If I have a funny day, I would have a wee talk to Martin and I just say stuff to him.’

  What sort of stuff?

  ‘Make me better, please. Make my health good.’

  That’s what his mum does too. They wouldn’t put it like this, but Martin has become like their own personal saint, the person in heaven they can ask to put in a good word with the boss.

  ‘I’ve always been fine, so hopefully somebody’s there watching, keeping us alright. If I’m feeling ill, I just say, “Let’s get through this. Let’s do this.” It sounds funny, but aye, I have. It’s both ways. I’ve got his heart so I feel as if Martin must be there, looking down on me, going, “Make sure my heart’s all right.”’

  Without realising it, Marc still has his hand on his heart.

  ‘I don’t understand it, but I do feel like he’s looking out for me, for real.’

  Football is his great love, the thing in life that gives him more joy than anything else. For a while, when he was strong enough after the transplant, he did incredibly well at the game again. ‘I wasn’t as fit as I wanted to be but I was just happy to be playing. A couple of the boys used to say I was one of the best players ever to play with the village team – and that was with the new heart, which was good to hear.’ So he was back in the game and it was wonderful, until the day he collapsed. That was in 2009 and Marc ended up back in hospital: this time a specialist heart failure unit at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital near Glasgow. His arteries had narrowed, which often happens to heart transplant patients, and so again the flow of his blood was being slowed down and oxygen was not getting to his system in the way it should. The doctors sent another one of those long, thin, flexible tubes up an artery into the heart and they inflated a little balloon to widen the artery then fitted a tiny mesh stent to keep it like that. Slowly, Marc was able to recover.

  Now he is playing with his brothers on the five-a-side pitch at Lochwinnoch again every week, hoping to get back to the full-size game. ‘I still have a good touch, a good shot, a good pass, but I can’t do too much running. The whole team knows I have had a heart transplant, so they try to cover me and not let me do too much.’ He can still handle the rough stuff, though. ‘They know I can take a tackle. The only thing is, every time I get a kick I get covered in bruises, because of the blood thinners. But that’s fine, I can handle a wee kick every now and again.’

  There’s just one thing holding him back. ‘I am getting bad stomach problems and they can’t figure out what is. The doctors said this problem will just pass and some days I am fine, but some days I get really bad cramp in my belly.’

  His pills for the day are lined up in a row on the coffee table, red and yellow and blue. ‘There’s a couple of immune suppressant drugs. There’s the one to stop my body rejecting the heart and a couple of blood thinners. My heart rate can go too high, so there’s beta blockers to keep it at a nice rate. There are pills to help my arteries, I think. Twelve different kinds of pills in the morning and seven before bed. It is a nightmare trying to remember to take them all, but if it’s going to keep me alive then I don’t mind.’

  I ask if he is able to work and he says it has been frustrating. ‘As soon as I started kicking a ball again I started working. I had an apprenticeship, a landscape gardening job, so I was doing quite well with that but then I ended getting paid off.’

  His next job was in a call centre. ‘It was quite stressful, phoning people up and trying to sell them broadband. I gave that up, it wasn’t good for my heart. This last year I have kind of been on hold because of my stomach. I would love to be out there making money of course, now is the only time I have not had a car. I’ll try and get a job when my belly’s better, but sometimes it’s a nightmare, I just can’t do anything.’

  He’s not a shirker, by any means. Marc wants to be useful, so he has been helping a mate out at the sports centre, painting the walls. ‘I only have to stand with a brush and paint, it’s not like I have to walk or anything. I would do anything to get a proper job and start working again, just these stomach pains are annoying. I shouldn’t complain though. My heart is working really well. I’ve never had any rejection, touch wood.’

  He’d rather talk about the good stuff than dwell on his problems. ‘See, I was all but dead. I’ve had all these years I wouldn’t have had if it wasn’t for Martin and I’m gonna have more so I just want to get on and be happy, enjoy myself, make the most of it. For him as much as me.’

  He’s not lonely, you couldn’t say that. Marc lives with his friend, and his brothers and sister, Mum and Dad and nephews and nieces are all nearby. Most of the mates he has had since he was a small boy still live in this village or the surrounding towns – there is a gang of them and they go out together all the time, to the pub or the match or to a casino. ‘The house always wins, you know that? But I don’t always lose!’

  I’m wondering about his love life, though. Marc is at an age when some lads start thinking about settling down and having kids. His dad had four by this age. Norrie has already told me a little bit of the story. ‘Marc had a few women friends, you know, even after what happened to him. He always had a way about him. Then this lassie came along and it was serious. They were good for each other. She was a nurse, although not one that was treating him, and her father was a doctor.’

  They were very close and into each other and went about life in their own way to match her shift work and his condition. Norrie saw a romantic side in Marc that clearly didn’t come from him. ‘I couldn’t get my head around the two of them sometimes. They’d be making soup at three in the morning. They were very lovey-dovey, you know?’

  When I ask Marc about this, his pale cheeks actually acquire a soft pink blush. ‘Well, I had a girlfriend for about four years but that stopped a good year or two ago.’

  Marc does not want to talk about it, except to say that he loved her very much and always will. He hopes to have children one day, but he’s still young and for the time being Marc has given up on looking for another girlfriend. ‘Since then I just can’t be bothered anymore. I do my own thing.’ Being Marc, he tries to make light of it all. ‘See, when I had a girlfriend I didn’t look after my health, because I was too worried about her and trying to look after her. I’d rather be single and look after myself and worry about my own health.’ The feelings are still very raw, clearly. Confused, too. He’s not over that relationship, the love endures, but it is some kind of relief not to have to fret about someone else. Marc wants a normal life, but he is a sensitive guy who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He has seen the people he loves suffer because of his illness and he is wary of putting somebody new through all of that.

  On the other hand, he knows he needs help sometimes, but he doesn’t want to be smothered. Marc loves his mum with all his being, but he doesn’t want the same thing from a girlfriend. So it’s tricky, finding the right person, and for now he is not looking. ‘I do want to be with someone and maybe have kids, but not yet. I’ve got time, hopefully. I need to be my own man a little bit now, you know?’

  I’ve spoken to his little brother Daryl, who says Marc is still a bit of a charmer with the opposite sex, even if he’s not after anyone just now. ‘Girls like that easy-ozeyness about him, they can just relax. He’s like that with the wains, too.’ That’s the Scots word for children, and Marc is great with them. He is particularly close to Leasa’s son Robert, his nephew, who comes round to see him nearly every day. They play a lot of games on the console, says Daryl. ‘Marc never really got the chance to grow up properly because of what happened. He’s always had that bit of daftness and immaturity about him, which is great.’

  Daryl is now in his early twenties, and the youngest son has been the first member of the family to go to university. He has a good job helping to design ships, lives wit
h a partner and has a couple of young children, who love their Uncle Marc. In some ways he has overtaken his brother in life, although he would never say so. They see a lot of each other, but they keep things light. ‘He’d be like, “Did you watch the football last night? How are the wains getting on?” Then maybe we’d give each other a wee slagging or two, as brothers do.’ Daryl is just glad to have Marc around to hang out with. ‘We need to cherish that, rather than think about the negatives. Nigel and Sue would have loved to have had these extra years with Martin. We’ve had some brilliant times together.’

  Marc agrees, totally. ‘We were talking about being lucky but I do feel as if I have won the lottery. There are still a lot of struggles but that’s still better than the alternative, you know? I’ve had all this life I wouldn’t have had. What I went through has probably made me a better person too. I was kind of the spoiled one for the first few years after I got the transplant, but I do think it’s made us a lot closer.’

  From what I have seen of the McCays, that’s true. This is a close, loving family and they are all rooting for Marc. Today, they all know he’s a bit nervous. When we finish talking, he is going to meet Sue again for the first time since the Rocky Mountaineer.

  ‘When I’m with her, I don’t really know what to say. I just freeze. I would rather write it down on a card and tell her what I think that way, because I’m not really good at talking. I don’t really know what you’re meant to say. How are you meant to thank someone for giving you a heart? It’s the biggest gift anybody could ever give anybody. If I did win the actual lottery I’d give it all to them. That’s how I feel. They’ve kept me alive.’

  ‘Why not say that, then?’

  Marc laughs.

  ‘No matter how many times you say thanks, it’s still not ever going to be enough.’

  Thirty-Four

  Sue & Linda

  Here come the mums. We’re outside the country hotel where Linda works now and the weather is foul. It’s a cold, dark, wet and windy day but the warmth between these two is obvious as soon as they meet. Sue, the quiet Englishwoman, opens her arms to Linda and the passionate, fiery Scot engulfs her in a hug. How can they love each other like this, against all the odds? How can a mother who has lost her son become mates with the mother of the boy who has his heart? It’s not allowed and it never happens – and yet in this case it has and here they are, very close friends reunited. They are so very different, even in the way they speak. Sue is naturally cautious and nibbles at her words, Linda rolls them around her mouth like they’re really tasty, but the two of them are chatting away within moments. They should be chalk and cheese, but they somehow go together like cheese and wine.

  ‘I think it’s a friendship but it’s also a special bond, something that you would never expect to have under normal circumstances,’ says Sue, who is going to meet Marc again shortly but wants to spend some time with his mum first. Their closeness began as soon as they met on the Rocky Mountaineer, she says. They talked and talked and kept the conversation going afterwards on Facebook. ‘I feel like she understands some of what I have been through and I am the same with her.’

  We go inside the lodge to get out of the rain and it’s comfortable, cosy.

  ‘The two of us have a very special bond. I do believe we were on the same journey in life,’ says Linda. ‘We can match our stories up, she can tell me where she was on the same day.’

  On that awful Tuesday night in August 2003, Linda was on her way down to Newcastle, desperately praying for a miracle for her dying son, when Sue was just home from the swimming pool, sitting on the sofa at home in Grantham with her happy, healthy boy, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

  Then when Martin was suddenly and cruelly snatched away from her by a brain bleed and the doctors in Nottingham told her on the Wednesday that there was no chance at all of him surviving, Linda was pacing the corridors of the Freeman Hospital three hundred miles away, hoping for a new heart to become available somewhere, from someone. And of course it did, at a terrible cost.

  On the Thursday night, they both said goodbye to their sons. Linda knew Marc was going for an operation that could save him or kill him. Sue knew she had lost Martin forever. ‘I am jealous of her for having her son alive, of course I am, that is only natural. I would not be a mother otherwise. But I also know that we both believed we were losing our child that night. Linda was heading towards that, she was expecting Marc not to live. Even when the heart became available, there was no way of knowing if Marc would make it. I find it incredible that she actually had it in her, at that time, to think of us.’

  When Linda saw the heart arrive at the Freeman she felt a great surge of compassion for the family of the boy who had died, whoever and wherever they might have been. But now Sue says she has realised for the first time that she actually thought of Linda too, without knowing her. ‘There was nothing I could do for Martin any more but when I was asked about organ donation I remember distinctly thinking, “If I can save another mother from going through this then that is what I need to do.” When we found out about Marc a day later, it all fell into place. I thought, “Well, there is another mother out there, she is my age, her son is the same as Martin, it all makes sense, this is right.”’

  They’re drinking tea from the hotel mugs. Sue is on the sofa with her legs crossed, still a little anxious for the right words. She fiddles with the heavy green beads of her necklace, hanging over a purple top. Linda is on the other side of the room in black boots and jeans and a long, cream dress top with lace edges. Her straight, blonde hair frames her face as she speaks, quickly, eager to let her feelings spill out. ‘I felt so guilty when I first got in touch with Sue through emails and Facebook, but she was saying to me, “Linda, don’t feel guilty.” I remember saying to my daughter, “It’s as if she knows me.” But then she is a mum and we have walked the same path.’

  Linda does not think she could have coped with the grief as well as Sue. ‘I would have been in a corner somewhere, honestly. I know my own self, my own mind, and it would be too much. My children are my life.’ She glances across as if to check it is okay to say this and is answered with a sympathetic smile. ‘Even as an adult, I am still running about, caring for them. No matter what their age, you’re always a mother.’

  Those words bring Sue close to tears. ‘You have no choice. You have to get through. You learn to live with yourself and embrace this new life. There is almost an element of peace, despite the fact that I miss Martin every day and I still grieve for him every day. I think it is important not to sit in a corner and wallow in the grief but to say, “This is not me, my grief does not define me.”’

  She twists a paper hankie with her fingers. Becoming a grandmother has helped Sue heal. ‘I did wonder how would I feel when my son and his wife had children, because how can you ever give love to that depth when you’ve lost someone? You’re actually frightened to ever let yourself love again, because something awful might happen. I used to fear that. But the day the first grandchild was born, that just disappeared. When you spend time with young children you can’t help but just focus entirely on them because that’s what they need. They’re in your face.’

  Hearing her talk like this, in such an open and emotional way, gives Linda the confidence to share something that has been on her mind. ‘I remember when Marc was getting better and he was even able to play football again after a few years and he scored his first goal. I looked up to the heavens and said, “Thank you, God.” Then I was like, “Oh Martin, I wish your mum and dad could see that.” That goal was for both him and Martin.’

  Sue looks a little taken aback by the full force of Linda’s emotion, but she answers anyway. ‘It’s actually really important to know things like that. It helps families like us understand that the decision we made in the time of our own trauma was the right one.’

  Linda has gone quiet. What is she thinking? ‘No, you’re all right,’ she says, dismissively. They chat for a while about the hote
l and what Linda does there as a housekeeper and what their children are up to. My friend Jonathan is with us, because I’ve already started to write about this and he is a producer who wants to help them tell their story on the radio. The strong thoughts and feelings inside Linda never stay hidden for long, and so they come spilling out now. ‘I’m sitting here thinking Marc has got that heart inside him. That heart grew inside Sue for nine months. That was Nigel’s and Sue’s baby that they made. Now Marc has got part of him, that’s just the way I feel. They gave my son life. Now Marc has got two mums.’

  She’s looking over here, avoiding eye contact with Sue. Linda gives a little nervous chuckle, as if regretting what she just said, but she can’t back down now. ‘If the roles were reversed, as a mum, that is how I would feel. If we were sitting here right now and that was Martin coming in the door and Marc was gone, I think I would feel, “That heart grew inside me for nine months.” You know?’

  Sue nods. She is not fazed. Perhaps she has heard it before. Perhaps the same thought has occurred to her. But Linda feels uneasy and makes a joke of it. ‘I just mean metaphorically speaking, I don’t mean full, hands-on Sue is his other mum. God help him, he’s got enough with me!’

  They both laugh. Sue stands up and reaches out for Linda again and they meet each other halfway across the room and hug. There are tears. But now Marc is coming and Sue needs to compose herself. We were talking about this in the car on the way up, so I know what a big deal it is going to be. There is unfinished business between them. That moment by Lake Louise in Canada when he took her hand and put it on his chest so she could feel his heart was wonderful, but it was also sudden, unsettling and over far too soon.