Zoe's Story

In October 2018, our bubbly, funny and perfectly "normal" 15 year old Zoe started to complain of chest pain and heart palpitations.

After a cautionary visit to RUH in Bath she was transferred to Bristol Children's Hospital for tests. During the 2 weeks she was there she always had a smile and tried to enjoy her time, enjoying the school work set and the attention! All the while the Dr's were undergoing all manner of tests and scans, and still seemingly no reason why her heart should be behaving like it was.

Devastatingly, Zoe went downhill fast and after 2 days in intensive care, her only hope was thought to be a heart transplant, and luckily a bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital became available.

Zoe was as upbeat as could be but was very weak and was most annoyed about possibly missing her brother Ben's 18th birthday in a few days. Putting her to sleep for the trip to London in the ambulance was heartbreaking, hoping she would make the journey safely and that wasn't our last goodbye.

Unfortunately Zoe remained very poorly on her arrival at GOSH and went on the ECMO machine to hopefully enable her heart to recover enough for a transplant. Sadly Zoe had complications and we learned she had also suffered a blood clot. After only 4 weeks of being poorly, on 19 November 2018, Zoe lost her fight and our lives changed forever and we learned the true meaning of being heart broken 💔

We later discovered, after test results returned, that Zoe had an extremely rare genetic congentinal disorder that resulted in the heart failure that could never have been known or looked for in the tests undertaken at the time.

Zoe's death leaves a huge hole for anyone that knew her and her smile, laugh and zest for life remain forever in our hearts. Life as a family has changed for us forever and we are grateful to the Ben Saunders Foundation for a pre-Christmas break away 💙