Family relief as heart transplant girl Brie McCann comes home

The mother of six-year-old Brie McCann has described her joy at her daughter’s return home after a life-saving heart transplant.

Brie received a new heart in a five-hour operation at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital towards the end of last year and was able to spend Christmas with her family in Glasgow.

She suffers from a rare heart condition called Ebstein’s anomaly and had spent months in the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow.

Speaking to the BBC’s Radio Scotland Breakfast programme, her mum Jodie McCann said: “It’s just everything that we’ve wanted. It was the longest wait but, I would say, worth it”.

Brie had originally been due to have heart surgery at Great Ormond Street in December 2024. Her parents, Jodie and Gary, took her to London for the operation but were told she was too unwell to proceed.

A donor heart was found about a year later and Brie now faces months of post-operative recovery before she can regularly leave home or consider a return to school.

The chance of a donor heart had fallen through at the last minute in October and Jodie told BBC News that Brie’s condition then deteriorated to the point where she was being kept alive by an ECMO (Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine.

That is a life-support device that acts as an artificial heart and lungs, taking over the job of oxygenating blood and removing carbon dioxide for patients with severe heart or lung failure.

But the move onto the machine meant time was running out for Brie.

“That does the job of the heart for you but with that you’ve only got on average two weeks left.” Jodie said.

“So we knew that we had her for two weeks and if we didn’t get the call in that time, that was it.

“Then, thankfully, by some miracle we got the call.”

Brie was flown by air ambulance from Glasgow to London where she was given her new heart in a five-hour operation.

Brie’s survival chances were “very, very low” but the operation was a complete success.

She opened her eyes two days later and within three more days was out of intensive care.

She was home with “the neatest scar ever” for Christmas, her mum said.

Brie is now at home where she is having to be made to take things easy.

“She’s doing really well. It’s just so nice to have her in the house and I do think she’s thriving being home as well.

“She’s trying to do a lot more than what she probably should. I’ve come down the stairs and she’s tried to be going on her bike, which isn’t the best, and I’ll turn my back for five minutes and she’s trying to climb the stairs by herself.

“She just likes to do everything at lightning speed. There’s no holding this girl back.”

Brie is currently on a programme of 25 medications every day, is unable to go out for the time being, and is having to be patient about going back to school.

Jodie said they are very aware that Brie’s new heart and recovery came at the cost of someone else’s death and the decision to donate their organs.

“It was always a very, very, bitter-sweet ask,” she said.

“I’m just so thankful that someone chose to donate their organs and, obviously, we’ve got our girl. We’re just over the moon.”