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'I make the most of my "Extra Life"'

By Peter Houghton for CNN

Houghton: "In 2000 I did not expect to live for more than six weeks maximum."

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(CNN) -- Peter Houghton, then aged 61, was the first person in the world to be fitted with a permanent artificial heart pump in 2000, having been given just weeks to live after being diagnosed with terminal heart failure. Here is his story.

I am one of a growing number of people who are in "Extra Life ," thanks to the invention of new methods of helping people survive with an underlying terminal disease.

Most people think of diabetics needing daily insulin, or renal patients needing dialysis if they think at all about people with Extra Life, but I have a small pump inside my heart that helps the heart pump enough blood around my body to stay reasonably healthy.

I have worn this pump for five years so it has given me five years of good quality life but has not cured the underlying heart disease any more than renal dialysis cures damaged kidneys.

I am alive though, and in June 2000 I did not expect to live for more than six weeks maximum. I was in end-stage heart failure after a five year struggle with the disease.

I was always breathless, retained water, had sores, gout and my kidneys had begun to fail.

The pump was a last desperate chance to live a little longer and a little better. Five years on I am in generally good health although my heart still could not manage without the pump.

I work full time, travel widely, and while I have to carry my batteries powering the pump everywhere with me and remember to recharge them, I lead a fairly normal life.

For me, this Extra Life provided by a mechanical pump is a kind of miracle. I set out to enjoy and make the best of it.

I have bad days, I tire easily and sometimes have slight nausea but I have life and the chance to love and be useful.

What can I say but thanks to those who invented the pump, implanted it and look after me with it.

It is not quite ordinary life, it is Extra Life, but how glad I am of it -- you are a long time dead.

-- For more details about "Extra Life" visit peterhoughton.org.uk.

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