My name is Mimi and I am 24 years old.  I was born with dilated cardiomyopathy of the left ventricle - basically, my heart sucked at doing what it was supposed to do!  I was kept stable for a year on various medications, but just after my first birthday I started to go downhill.  

In February 1994 I was rushed to Great Ormond Street Hospital where I was put on the emergency transplant list.  After just 6 weeks on the list I got my call and I received a new heart.

My heart came from a seven-year-old boy, Paul, in the room next door to me at Great Ormond Street.  He had cystic fibrosis and needed a double lung transplant, but they couldn't do separate lung transplants at that time, so he got the heart and lungs of someone who had passed away and I got his heart.  Valves from my heart went into others.  Since then I have lived a perfectly normal healthy life; I am very lucky.

In 2015 I was part of the Harefield Hospital Ecuador mountaineering expedition team and in 2016 I trekked the Great Wall of China with Girl Guides.  During the past four years I have worked as an outdoor activities instructor for children (teaching climbing, abseiling, archery etc), and I recently started a new job in a nursery in order to gain the childcare qualifications that I need in order to train to become a Play Specialist on paediatric wards.