DonateLife Week: New lease on life for heart transplant recipient

Now, the 27-year-old has just returned home from Melbourne with a brand new heart.

Mr Worker was no stranger to hospitals.

"I had chemotherapy and stuff when I was a kid for cancer, and it deteriorated my heart muscle and got weaker, and weaker, and weaker," Mr Worker said. "That was when I was four and six years old."

He had been unwell and was being treated at The Alfred Hospital when he went into cardiac arrest.

He was then put into an induced coma.

"I don't really remember it, but it was scary," he said.

"I woke up about a month later and didn't really know what was going on."

While unconscious his partner and family had to make some difficult decisions, such as putting him on a ventricular assist device - basically, an external mechanical heart.

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"With the mechanical heart I was quite stable, and some people with the mechanical heart I know have been on it for about two years," he said.

He was on the waitlist for a heart prior to his heart attack, but due to his health deteriorating so much, he had to make sure he was healthy and fit enough to receive a new organ.

They were able to return home in December.

"Then earlier this year I got the call to say that a heart had become available," Mr Worker said.

He said he went blank after answering the phone.

"I sort of had to hand the phone to my partner to take the rest of the call. It was very emotional," he said.

After having the transplant and recovering in Melbourne for about three months, he says he feels better than he's ever felt before.

"It's unreal," he said.

"For a bit there it was a bit touch and go, but to just learn to walk again and stuff you just appreciate life so much.

"Even just to be able walk to the car and back without having to stop 10 times... Everyday things that normal people can do, I can do now."

Mr Worker encouraged all not already on the donor list to register.

"Just sign up - there's no reason not to," he said.

"Have the chat with the family, because they're the decision makers at the end of the day."

He said he was thankful for the gift of his new heart.

"I don't think there's any words you could say to them [the donor] to thank them enough," he said.

Now that he's back in Tasmania, he plans to get back into a major passion - music.

"I play a lot of music, so I'm going to get right back into that and get gigging again," he said.

"I was kind of playing right up until the day before I died.

"I stopped because when I was in ICU, I deteriorated so much that I laid on my arms, and my fingers got all bent up.

"I had to wait for the nerves to grow back out again to straighten my fingers out."

Mr Worker's partner, Jayd Whatmough, said his quality of life had improved massively since the transplant.

However, getting to this point had a been a trying time.

"It's been pretty stressful," she said.

"I was in Tasmania when he had his heart attack ... I had the flu and didn't want to spread that, so I stayed at home.

"He was very unwell in the weeks leading up to it, and he said he could barely walk and was really tired.

"Next minute, he wasn't replying to my messages.

"I tried to call him and then that's when his mum got the call from his father, who was with him, saying that he'd had a heart attack, they weren't sure if they were going to be able to bring him back, and that we should just get on a flight and get over there."

Ms Whatmough said they were in Melbourne for the next six months.

"It was one thing after another, really. Every day was different," she said.

"Then he just kept declining, and that's when they decided to put him on the VAD.

"We had to decide if he wanted the VAD because he was still unconscious at the time, but we had spoken about it before, what his decisions would be.

"I said, 'if he was awake, he would want this because it's the best choice for him and his life going on'."

The recovery was tough, she said.

"Seeing him no be able to walk, write, and talk properly was hard, and he didn't understand simple conversations," she said.

"But he just tried his hardest, and you could see how hard he was fighting.

"Then we finally got to come home in December."

Ms Whatmough said it was a surprise to get the call when they did.

"We never expected it because he was already in hospital with a fluid overload," she said.

"He had been in and out of hospital since being home and he was decreasing again before getting the call, which was worrying."

She said it had been an intense few months.

"It hasn't even been 12 months yet since the heart attack, so everything has happened really quickly," she said.

"But now he can do even just simple things like walking in cold weather - that was a big thing he would never be able to go out in the cold.

"Just walking from the house to the car was a big issue.

"And now he can run around with his son.

"He's just enjoying life."

DonateLife Week will run from July 28 to August 4.

This year, Tasmanians are urged to find a "plus one" that is yet to sign up to the register in an aim to double the amount of donors in the state.

Tasmania has the second highest number of registrations in Australia at 48 per cent.

In June 2018 there were more than 203,200 registered donors in the state, and this year there is more than 207,600.

Currently, 14,000 Australians are waitlisted for a transplant, and a further 11,000 are on dialysis.

Registering to become a donor is easy and takes less than a minute.

Visit donatelife.gov.au to register online.

Registrations can also be made through myGov, through the Express Plus Medicare app, or by posting a registration form.