For country singer Victoria McGee, appearing as a judge on All Together Now has been a joyful experience for the 33-year-old who was recently forced to give up her career for health reasons.
Watch why Australia is obsessed with 7’s All Together Now in the video player below.
“I could always feel that something wasn’t right with my heart. As a teenager I had arrhythmia and ectopic beats,” the TV judge tells WHO.
“By the time I was 28 I was at risk of sudden cardiac death, which is different to a heart attack because you basically just drop dead.”
The mum of little boy Dayne, 3, reveals that she’s just been placed on a waiting list to have a heart transplant after two operations have failed to delay her heart’s deterioration.
“I’ve had a beautiful life so if it was up to me I would opt to let life take me where it’s going to take me, but I have no option but to keep fighting for my son.”
As a young woman, McGee admits she struggled to come to terms with her diagnosis.
“I went to my GP who sent me for a scan because I had fluid around my heart, and two days later she rang me to say I had heart failure on both sides of my heart. I was only 28.”
“I couldn’t walk from my bedroom to the bathroom, I was like a lady with no lungs,” McGee explains. “So I had an ablation, which is where they burn the nerve endings in the heart [via] an artery in your leg to try to get it to work properly.”
But the procedure only worked temporarily, until the performer was told she was a “dead woman walking” and needed to have a pacemaker and defibrillator inserted. Despite the seriousness of her condition, McGee can still see the lighter side.
“I’m a bionic woman!”
Now, the mum is urging others to consider organ donation and have an open conversation with their family.
“It’s so low in Australia but it could save someone’s life.”
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