Caroline’s heart needs private medical attention!

Aim

Caroline needs medical care the NHS is struggling to offer. Private consultation, care, treatment & surgery could give her her life back.

Caroline’s life has been driven by her caring nature and wanting to help people, whether it be practically, spiritually or emotionally. For me, this crowdfunder is a way for us all to give back the endless love and support she has given to so many, and the fact we will be giving it back to help her heart feels so poignant…. 

Background

Caroline has been a lightweight all her life, only needing half a pint to get drunk, and didn’t party hard like the rest of us….plus 30yrs of the autoimmune disease Lupus (not Secondary, but main symptom being fatigue) she looked after her body and used her holistic therapy training to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Having had a difficult childhood and being estranged from most of her small family, Caroline has been defiantly independent and has always pushed through any hardship with work and helping/supporting people. Any of her own health concerns were put down to stress, Lupus and being rundown from always working hard, being a carer and a single mother of two.
However, continuing breathlessness, chest tightness, heavy aching legs and fatigue led her to visit A&E and her doctor numerous times. The ‘classic/generic’ symptoms for heart failure tend to be from research done on men, with the main symptom being chest pain (which Caroline was not getting…)…so sadly, despite the chest tightness and breathlessness, Caroline was told it was anxiety because all blood tests came back normal. And because she wasn’t in the normal risk category her heart was never checked.
(Sorry to the men reading this, but there’s a general theory that men’s pain thresholds are less than women, so a male dominated research process leaves the strength of women as collateral damage to the process of heart failure detection.)

Ironically, knowing something was wrong but not being listened to, she started feeling very anxious and wanting to withdraw from everything. She started saying no to extra work in the summer of 2022. In January 2023 she stopped any extra work, driving and working weekends and evenings (which was when a lot of her massage work came in) because she was just too exhausted. Doubting her own gut instincts and feeling overwhelmed, she put her symptoms down to being rundown, when actually her heart wasn't pumping properly and so was affecting her physically and mentally. From multitasking and running around being all things to everyone, she felt constantly exhausted and unable to concentrate on more than one thing at once.  It was a gradual decline so wasn’t noticed as much as it should have been.

Symptoms

Ringing 111 over the Christmas of 2023, when we now know Caroline was having a mini heart attack, she was left with a diagnosis of Covid; she thought it was severe indigestion from an Allergic reaction to some food. When she said there were no other symptoms or pain anywhere else it was put down to Covid, as at that time any symptom could be put down to that.
So Caroline was not encouraged to get her heart checked. Even a Cholesterol test at any time would have given a big warning sign as levels were subsequently found to be very high, but without a reason it wasn’t flagged.

She went back to work at UWE in January and her energy levels got worse and worse, so she just came home in the evenings and went straight to bed. Finally her daughter Esme encouraged her to go to A&E for the 4th time since the previous year. By this time Caroline had learnt that if she wanted some serious attention she needed to say she did have chest pain. Previously she could see the lack of interest once she said there was none. To her it was a slight pressure rather than pain (and anyone with a larger bust can tell you it’s always uncomfortable there and that’s normal!)

So they finally took blood tests for her heart. While waiting for the results in A&E she was about to be sent home by the Triage Nurse with an inhaler to try, before the test results were back.  Luckily the doctor just found her as she was leaving and told her that she‘d had mini heart attacks. Her Troponin levels were through the roof….and she had to be admitted immediately. Then an Angiogram determined she needed open heart surgery as soon as possible.  Can you imagine the shock, she had no idea it was so serious. It was all a whirlwind.

Genetic Testing

Having had genetic testing we now know Caroline has 4-5 inherited bio-markers (genetic errors) related to cholesterol and sugar. This basically means her body has not been able to process these properly, so it's been building up for years and years and clogged her arteries, despite no excesses and a healthy lifestyle. It’s called Polygenic hypercholesterolemia. Her father had the same operation in his 50’s and she since discovered all the male relatives on her Dad’s side died young. 

Heart Failure

Caroline had the open-heart surgery, triple heart bypass 18months ago in January 2024.
Devastatingly she was in the 1% of these surgeries that fail. Unfortunately it’s more common in women. Diagnosis now is heart failure.

Things seemed really good 10weeks after surgery and she was doing Physio classes to get back in shape, but then things started to decline and she had less and less energy per day. Now Caroline can only walk a few 100-yards before she gets out of breath, is tired all the time and has to conserve her energy to be able to do basic daily activities. She is now registered disabled.

Limitations of the NHS

Being in the 1% of surgery failures, it seems to have left medical professionals unsure of what to do and with limited options and time for a personal consultation. In Bristol the hospital seems very overstretched and Caroline has struggled to get appointments, scans and info on what is actually going on with her own body. She’s had 3 stents fitted and adjusted, which hasn’t helped much, and she’s now waiting for another one on the other side of her heart. But this procedure has been cancelled twice already and the others haven’t improved anything. Caroline’s ejection fraction (heart function) is about 40% now. It was 38% before the main operation! So not much change.

How you can help

If Caroline was to go private, we hope she would have a personal one on one consultation, where a clear plan can be made and she can have some confidence in her future.

As with a lot of debilitating physical conditions, the hardest thing has been the affect on her mental health. Going from being a busy multitasker, sociable and imbedded in the community; having daily personal interactions with people in and outside of her work, Caroline now feels isolated, spending the majority of her time at home and under stimulated. Her mind is still sharp but she gets overwhelmed and fatigued quickly. Its very frustrating after being so active and independent.

Looking back and having discussions with friends, Caroline can now see how strained she was for years - becoming more irritable and overwhelmed - as her heart was having to work harder and harder and her brain also wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
Now she understands what is wrong she is constantly aware of only taking on one thing at a time and pacing herself.  To stop getting bored in Isolation she is still doing free graphic design and fundraising for charities and community groups and has taken up crochet!

 Walking just 200-yards leaves her out of breath and physically exhausted, and anything more is a strain. She can no longer even walk the 5mins into town. Basic tasks like showering and dressing are an effort and days have to be planned to conserve energy.

Please help Caroline raise money to book a private consultation with a heart specialist, with follow ups, treatment and most likely surgery. It all adds up. Any donation is really helpful, however small…🙏

It is so upsetting that we cannot rely on the depleted, underfunded and overstretched NHS…but I hope as a community we can support each other when we need it.  

Caroline doesn’t want any attention, and feels very self-conscious about her situation.  She still hasn’t got used to it. She would never ask for anything, so this is my way of helping her.
So, please, rather than calling with wishes - if she’s ever helped you practically, emotionally or spiritually (and she gave so much for free) please give anything you can to show this. It will be much appreciated and a way to say Thank you XxxxX

This project successfully funded on 29th September 2025