A DEVASTATED mum has paid a moving tribute to her beautiful daughter who survived a heart transplant but fell ill and died suddenly 11 years later.

Liz Sullivan’s eldest daughter Maisie was only 24 when she passed away.

The popular marketing graduate was living life to the full in London last year when she became ill.

She was admitted to hospital but her condition deteriorated and she died just days later.

Former Greenock High pupil Maisie suffered from cardiomyopathy, a hereditary heart condition which also affects her younger brother George.

Only a year before Maisie’s tragic death George had been struck down with the same symptoms and had to undergo a heart transplant, just like his big sister had a decade earlier.

Now nearly a year after Maisie’s tragic death the family have donated thousands of pounds — thanks to a fundraiser organised by her best friend Jenna Collin — to help other heart transplant patients.

Inspired by the many happy memories they have of such a special girl, they are also appealing for more people to sign up to become organ donors and help save others like Maisie and George.

Her mum Liz, of Teal Drive in Inverkip, said: “Maisie lived life to the full and we supported her to go and live her life.

“She was a force of nature.

“She graduated from university and the first job she went for was in London, she got it and off she went.

”She loved it down there and was there for a year.

“Maisie had just been promoted before she died.

“All her colleagues where she worked at Flexicom Estate Agents were devastated — they had no idea she’d had a heart transplant.

“Our GP phoned when he had heard she died and when he was speaking about Maisie he said that she just lit up a room whenever she walked in.” Liz admits that she is still struggling to come to terms with what has happened.

She said: “Nothing will ever be the same again.

“Everything has changed.

“We don’t know yet how we are going to rebuild our lives.” The family were living in England at the time when Maisie, then aged 13, first started to feel unwell.

Liz said: “I was from Port Glasgow and we were always up and down visiting family. We had come up home for Christmas in 2003 and up until then Maisie had never been unwell in her life. There was no sign of anything.

“I took her to the doctors and they thought at first she had pulled a muscle. But over the next couple of days she fell really unwell and never even opened a present on Christmas Day.

“We went to back to the doctors and a young doctor, who I say saved her life, said that there was something not right.” After an X-ray at Inverclyde Royal Maisie was taken to Yorkhill Hospital as it was discovered her heart was three times bigger than it was supposed to be.

She was transferred to Freeman Hospital in Newcastle to wait for a heart donor.

Her mum said: “Her surgeon Asif Hassan should be a saint; he is a hero. He stayed in that hospital from the moment she arrived on the Thursday because he said he had a feeling that she would get a heart donor. He just had a feeling.

“On the Sunday after she arrived she went through the heart transplant.

“Of course they don’t tell you at the time that they only have a seven-day window to get a heart.” Within three months, Maisie was back at school and soon fighting fit.

The family then moved back to Inverclyde to be closer to their relatives.

But 10 years later her brother George, then 19, suddenly fell ill and the nightmare began all over again.

It was discovered the heart failure was a result of the hereditary condition cardiomyopathy, which Liz and her youngest daughter Anna also have a mild form of.

Liz added: “I was worried because George is autistic but the staff at the Golden Jubilee, where he had his transplant, were just amazing. They explained it all in terms he could understand.

“It was only when George went through the heart transplant that I think it hit Maisie what she had been through. She said that she had no idea how we felt until it happened to George.

“She was in bits about George and blamed herself.” Despite being so upset at what had happened to her brother, Maisie managed to finish her finals at Glasgow Caledonian University and passed her degree with flying colours.

She had been living and working in London when one day last year she phoned her mum to say that she wasn’t feeling well and was going to go to hospital.

Liz said: “I went down on the train and straight to the A&E department. Maisie just walked up and said ‘Hi mum’.

“I tried to stress to them that she’d had a transplant and recently had a kidney infection. They didn’t seem worried, so I didn’t think I needed to be worried.

“She wasn’t getting any better over the next couple of days but there was no high temperature, so again they were not concerned.

“I was just sitting there helpless as Maisie became worse. I never left her side.” After three days the alarm bells started to ring and medics told Liz that there was something in her daughter’s stomach but they didn’t know what it was.

Liz said: “That is when a real fear set in.

“I left the room for minutes and Maisie said, ‘I am fine mum’.

“I came back and she had an oxygen mask on.” Doctors then told Liz that Maisie had taken a seizure and that they faced a huge battle to save her life.

Soon she was surrounded by machines as doctors desperately fought to keep her alive, as an infection attacked her already weak heart.

But on 27 November last year Liz and her husband Nick were told by the medics that there was nothing more they could do — their daughter had gone.

Liz, 56, Nick, an IT project manager, Maisie’s brother George, 22 and her younger sister Anna, 20 have all been left devastated by her death.

Her younger brother George, who volunteers in the cafe at the Fitzgerald Centre, said: “I miss Maisie but I feel that she is still here with us.

“She is in my heart and I keep her there.

“She helped me so much when it happened to me.” Maisie’s family are now bravely facing the future and they are determined to help other people who have been through the same trauma they have suffered as a family.

Earlier this year her best friend Jenna organised a black tie race night in Maisie’s memory and it raised a fantastic £4,000 for charity.

Her family thanked everyone who helped. They donated £3,000 to the Golden Jubilee Hospital and the rest to Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

The family say they’d like to say a special thanks to Elaine McCready and everyone at the Carnock Bar and Kevin Blamire at the Chartroom for their amazing support.

They now hope that Maisie’s story will boost awareness of the acute need for more organ donors to come forward.

George knows just how precious a gift organ donation can be.

He explained: “I feel very lucky to have a new heart.

“I remember what it was like in the hospital.

“I had to learn to walk again after the operation by taking small steps.” Liz added: “You don’t realise until it happens to you but there is a desperate need for organ donors out there to help others.” l To find out more about organ donation visit www.organdonationscotland.org