A doctor who suffered heart failure and underwent a transplant has recounted her ‘surreal’ ordeal that left her gasping for breath while climbing stairs. Dr Sanjana Kochhar, hailing from Newcastle, was torn by the agonising wait in hospital, hoping for a donor as she faced the grim reality of ‘waiting for someone to die’ to save her own life.
During her third year at medical school, she began suffering from heart palpitations and shortness of breath. Diagnosed with cardiomyopathy at the tender age of 21 in 2014, Dr Kochhar, also known as Sanj, later endured episodes of erratic heartbeats.
In 2022, after being urgently admitted to the hospital, she received a diagnosis of acute heart failure, a revelation that struck her profoundly. Now 31, Sanj expressed: “As a doctor, I thought I understood heart failure but experiencing it first-hand was surreal – something no amount of training could prepare me for. I was getting really bad chest pains and breathlessness to the point that I was struggling to walk up a flight of stairs.”
To combat the life-threatening arrhythmias, Sanj was equipped with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator – a compact apparatus implanted into patients to correct perilous heart rhythms that can lead to cardiac arrest.
Reflecting on her deteriorating health, she said: “I got very, very poorly. I ended up with multi-organ failure. My heart wasn’t working properly, my lungs were full of fluid and my kidney and liver function were quickly deteriorating. I was in quite a critical condition – I wasn’t walking or eating.”
After being transferred to the Royal Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, Sanj was swiftly placed on the urgent heart transplant list on October 31, 2022. In a remarkable stroke of luck, a matching donor was found and Sanj underwent her life-saving operation just four weeks later, on November 28, 2022.
Now practising as a GP in Liverpool, she shared her inner conflict: “For me, one of the hardest things to get through was accepting the fact that someone was going to die in order for me to get a heart. I think as a doctor, that’s a really difficult thing to process. Because my job is to save people. In a horrible way, by wanting a new heart, I was waiting for someone to die.”
Released from hospital on Christmas Eve 2022, Sanj embarked on her journey to recovery, achieving feats previously unthinkable without the transplant, such as hitting the gym, embracing hiking, yoga, and badminton. Her personal life flourished too; she got engaged on the anniversary of her transplant in November 2023.
Committed to making a difference, Sanj is now championing the cause of heart health awareness and is actively encouraging public donations to the British Heart Foundation. She expressed her unique perspective: “I think I’m in a really unique position being a doctor and a transplant recipient and I think I should use that to help other people.”
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive at the British Heart Foundation, commented on the dire reality that ‘millions’ are still waiting for treatments and cures that remain out of reach. She concluded with relief over Sanj’s outcome: “I’m so pleased that Sanj is able to spend precious time with her family this Christmas.”
