Amy Loughren from The Good Nurse on Netflix needed a heart transplant as she was suffering from a heart condition, cardiomyopathy, which restricts the heart from pumping blood to the rest of the body. However, she was focused on catching Charles Cullen at that time. Recently, Amy reported that she underwent the needed surgery 17/18 years ago and is fine now.
The biographical drama movie The Good Nurse on Netflix is based on Charles Graeber‘s true crime book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder. The main character in the movie is a nurse named Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), who learns that Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), her partner at the hospital, has murdered multiple people across nine hospitals without being apprehended.
We witness a fictionalized version of Charles Cullens’ life, who is actually thought to have killed around 400 people. Although the majority of the film is devoted to Amy and those around her, the essence of this horrifying story is how Cullen goes about committing the heinous murders.
Amy was a struggling single mother of two girls in both the movie and real life who was doing her best to make ends meet while also juggling major health difficulties. Amy, according to Newsweek, suffered from cardiomyopathy, a disorder of the heart that makes it challenging for the heart to pump blood to the body’s other organs. She needed a heart transplant but she focused on catching the serial killer. However, many people wonder what happened after Cullen got arrested. Did she get a heart transplant? Well, let’s find it out.
Amy Loughren From ‘The Good Nurse’ Underwent the Necessary Surgery as She Was Suffering From Cardiomyopathy and Needed a Heart Transplant: The Nurse Claims Her Heart Condition Is Fine Now!
In the Netflix movie, Amy Loughren confesses to Charles Cullen that she has cardiomyopathy and needs a heart transplant as their relationship deepens. Well, she did have cardiomyopathy in real life as well. It is a disease that restricts the heart from pumping blood to the rest of the body. Cullen was always there to lend a hand so that she would have less work to do managing her failing heart. According to Charles Graeber‘s eponymous source text for the movie, Amy underwent pacemaker surgery at about the same time. Graeber has written the following in his book:
Sometimes she [Amy] could feel it [her heart] stop beating until her pacemaker kicked in. Somehow death didn’t scare her like it was supposed to.
This uncommon disorder differs from many common heart problems in that it affects both men and women and can strike young people. Cardiomyopathy can be classified as dilated, hypertrophic, or arrhythmogenic. Tobias Lindholm, the director of The Good Nurse, revealed that Amy’s heart condition was worse than he had anticipated. In an interview with BBC news, he explained,
I met her [Amy] in New York… and everything was confirmed. On top of that, she was more brilliant than I thought, more human. Her [heart] disease had been much worse [than I thought]
Amy underwent the necessary heart surgery 18 years ago. She was made healthy and was able to change the course of her life thanks to the procedure, which was described as experimental. After Cullen’s arrest, she gave up her job as a nurse and started working as a hypnotist, NLP practitioner, and past-life regression therapist.
She also specializes in hypnotherapy, crystal language reading, Reiki treatment, and other therapeutic modalities. She currently lives in the Floridan community of DeLand. Amy still maintains a good relationship with her daughters Alex and Maya. She, herself, claimed to be fine now and does not have any complications with her heart. In an interview with TooFab, she stated, “I’m not 17-18 years outside of my heart surgery, so I’m more healthy.”
In her interview with Sky News about her role as Amy Loughren in The Good Nurse, Jessica Chastain highlighted the nurse’s determination to catch Charles Cullen with her health condition. She explained,
To be able to talk to Amy and understand what her life was like and what she had at stake, it really helped me to realise how courageous she was and what an incredible person she is. All the things that she was juggling at the time. Being a single mother, two girls, not having health insurance, working on a night shift so you’re not really getting proper sleep. And also, at the same time, needing a heart transplant. That’s what we walk in with at the beginning of this film.
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