Later that day Max developed a persistent cough, and by the evening he was so unwell he was taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Max said after his surgery, at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, doctors told his family he could have died “at any time” during the 196-day wait for a donor heart.
As a confused and scared nine-year-old, when he was first told he needed a transplant, Max said he was adamant he was “not having another heart in my chest”.
But as time wore on and by the time the match was found, he accepted it was his only chance of survival.
“When it came to the day of me having the transplant there were a thousand emotions in the air”, he said.
“My dad, he was sort of trying to keep calm but you could tell he was terrified, he couldn’t comprehend the feelings of how I could go in and he could never see me again.”
