A YOUNG Glasgow woman with a heart condition is to host a ceilidh in the city for funds to help fight cardiomyopathy.
Nurse Mhairi Morrison, 23, of Dumbarton Road, is to run the event at Hampden to raise cash for the Cardiomyopathy Association charity that provides information and support to affected people. Mhairi has arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, or ARVC, a disease that causes fat and scar tissue to develop in the heart muscle. This can interrupt the heart’s normal rhythm and affect its pumping power. When Mhairi was first diagnosed three years ago, her heart’s pumping power was less than a quarter that of a normal heart. After starting on medication, she was referred to specialists at a London hospital. Doctors there diagnosed ARVC and, because they feared she was at risk of dying suddenly from the condition, she was given an internal defibrillator. The device shocks her heart back into a normal rhythm if needed. Her condition has since improved, allowing her to finish her university course and start work as a nurse in the high dependency unit at Gartnavel Hospital.
She now plans a long-awaited holiday in Australia.