By Toby WadeyBBC News
Tom EvansJennifer Sutton's heart is on display at the Hunterian Museum in LondonA woman has visited her own heart at a museum 16 years after it was removed during life-saving transplant surgery.
Jennifer Sutton, from Ringwood in Hampshire, said it was "incredibly surreal" to see the organ as an exhibit at London's Hunterian Museum.
The 38-year-old said she hoped it would help promote organ donation, describing it as "the greatest gift possible".
She told the BBC she now led a busy, active life and plans to "keep myself going for as long as possible".
Jennifer SuttonMs Sutton recalls giving her family the thumbs up after waking from her surgery in 2007Ms Sutton was a university student when she realised she was struggling with moderate exercise like walking up hills.
She was quickly diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy - a condition that restricts the heart's ability to pump blood around the body - and was told she would die without receiving a transplant.
The then-22-year-old's health deteriorated rapidly while she was on the transplant waiting list, but she received the news in June 2007 that a match had been found.
She had been particularly anxious as, when she was 13 years old, Ms Sutton's mother had died following the same surgery.
Tom EvansMs Sutton visited the exhibit with her surgeon Mr Stephen Large at London's Hunterian Museum"I remember waking up after the transplant and thinking 'oh my goodness I am actually a new person'," she said.
"I remember doing a little double thumbs up dance to my family and saying 'I made it I made it'."
She gave permission to the Royal College of Surgeons to use her heart for a display and it is now open for all to see at the museum in Holborn.
"The minute you first walk in you think 'that used to be inside my body'," she said.
"But it's quite nice too - it's like my friend. It kept me alive for 22 years and I'm quite proud of it really.
"I've seen lots of things in jars in my lifetime but to think that's actually mine is very weird."
Tom EvansShe married husband Tom Evans last year, something she said never would have happened without her donorMs Sutton said she wanted to do anything she could to promote organ donation, citing how life-defining moments like her wedding would never have happened otherwise.
"It's been 16 fantastic years and I wouldn't have had any of them without my donor," she added.
"I'm incredibly busy, active and keeping this heart as healthy as possible - keeping myself going for as long as possible."
She added that she wanted to urge others to live life to the fullest and encouraged anyone putting off plans to "do it today".
Tom EvansMs Sutton said she now enjoyed leading an active and happy lifeMr Stephen Large was the surgeon who carried out her transplant at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire.
He said the survival rate for a heart transplant at the hospital after one year was about 93% and that Ms Sutton's recovery had been "spectacular".
"She was as sick as anybody with pump failure," he said.
"She's done incredibly well... without the rejection a third of patients get and no setbacks at all."
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