Gregory Ross Gillett     1954 - 2001
 
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  Greg's Medical History - some definitions.

Eisenmenger’s Syndrome.
This is pulmonary hypertension resulting from pulmonary vascular abnormalities due to long standing congenital heart disease. In Greg’s case this was ventral septal defect.

Polycythemia
Increased viscosity of the blood, which can result in stasis of blood within vessels, pulmonary congestion, cardiomegaly, and possibly vascular thrombosis.

Greg suffered from polycythemia from the age of 12.

It was a secondary complication of his health problems and Veni-section was where they took 500mls to a litre of blood from Greg to stop him having a stroke. This was done about every 6 weeks and, closer to the transplant, every 2 weeks. This complicated his life as this continual blood loss resulted in chronic anaemia, which called for Iron injections which in turn further increased his blood thickness and therefore the need for removal of blood. Greg accepted this as part of his condition and never complained.

Thanks to Sharon Trewren