A TRANSPLANT patient from Ringwood is organising a charity fund-raiser this weekend - after coming face to face with her own heart.

Just months after receiving a successful transplant at the famous Papworth hospital in Cambridge, Jennifer Sutton caught up with her old organ preserved in a glass case at a new medical exhibition now open in London.

Jennifer, 23, who was diagnosed with the life-threatening heart condition restrictive cardiomyopathy, received her new heart in June.

Even before the operation Jennifer had volunteered her heart to the Wellcome Collection to raise public awareness of cardiac disease and the need for organ donors.

"Seeing my heart for the first time was an emotional and surreal experience," said Jennifer.

"It caused me so much pain and turmoil when it was inside me. Seeing it sitting here is extremely bizarre and very strange.

"Finally I can see this odd looking lump of muscle that has given me so much upset."

Her condition caused the heart muscle to stiffen so it could not relax normally after contraction, which was also affected as the condition progressed.

The condition is incurable, irreversible and invariably fatal without a heart transplant.

Figures released by the British Heart Foundation show a quarter of deaths in the UK are caused by heart and circulatory disease and transplant patients have to wait on average 103 days for a suitable organ to become available.

For 28 patients last year that wait was too long and they died while on the transplant waiting list.

But Jennifer, who overcame her illness to complete a degree in animal science, was among the lucky ones.

And she reckons the short wait for her new heart has allowed her to make a speedy recovery, leaving hospital just 18 days after the transplant.

"It is down to the fact that I only had to wait two months and my condition had not deteriorated too much.

"I was very, very lucky," she added.

Now to give something back to Papworth, Jennifer is holding a fund-raising effort at Poulner junior school on Sunday with a netball tournament and family fun day from 3pm to 6pm and live music from 7pm to 10pm.