There are moments when Rheagan Hendry forgets.
That split second when something joyous happens ? her daughter smiling for the first time, finding the perfect wedding dress ? when she wants to reach for the phone and call her mum. Then she remembers that she can?t.
It?s two years since her mother Denise, wife of former Scotland captain Colin Hendry, died from a brain infection following a long battle with illness after a liposuction procedure went wrong.
In 2002, Denise checked into a private clinic for what should have been a straightforward procedure to remove fat from her stomach. Afterwards she spent six weeks in intensive care, the surgeon having repeatedly punctured her bowel.
In the next seven years she endured more than 20 operations to repair the damage before succumbing to meningitis in 2009. She was 43.
I found out I was pregnant on my first Mothers? Day without my mum ? I thought, ?OK, Mum, I get the hint?
In July Rheagan launched The Denise Hendry Foundation to raise awareness of the dangers of cosmetic surgery.
?There are people who see getting cosmetic surgery as being as easy as getting a haircut or their nails done,? says Rheagan. ?What we are seeing, though, is how things can go wrong. One girl might say: ?I had a boob job and it was fantastic?, then five years later she?s had a stroke because one of her implants is leaking. There are people whose surgery has gone right in the beginning but, slowly, it is failing.?
Sitting in the bar of a seaside hotel, Rheagan, 22, is pretty with piercing grey-blue eyes. The eldest of four children ? big sister to Kyle, 20, Callum, 13, and Niamh, 12 ? she has her father?s chin but the softness of her mother?s features.
Rheagan was 12 when her mother decided to have liposuction. After four children Denise, who was born in Dundee, wanted to have the confidence to wear a bikini again.
?My mum was always someone who looked after herself. Her ethos was about a healthy lifestyle for all of us, especially with my dad playing football,? recalls Rheagan.
?At that time liposuction was starting to become quite big. At that time nothing had gone wrong with it, or at least no-one knew of anything going wrong. It appeared low risk. It was made to sound a straight-forward procedure where she would be in and out as a day patient.?
The ?routine? procedure at a Preston clinic, however, went catastrophically wrong when Denise?s bowel was punctured nine times leading to severe blood poisoning, a collapsed lung, kidney failure and a heart attack.
?Her bowel was perforated, causing the contents to leak into her system, causing septicaemia,? says Rheagan. ?The high levels of poison in her blood saw her lung collapse. She started to suffer multi-organ failure and ended up on kidney dialysis for two weeks.?
As infection ravaged her, Denise slipped into a coma. She spent six weeks in intensive care. At one stage doctors warned the family to prepare for the worst.
Yet, against all expectations, Denise rallied. In the months which followed her recovery was slow and painful. She needed a colostomy bag and relied on a complicated combination of medicines.
?There were days it seemed mum was getting better and then others she didn?t. As a child you feel helpless. I would do what I could, make her a cup of tea, sit with her, try to make her feel better.?
There are those who have criticised her mother?s vanity. Asked if she believes Denise carried a guilt for the heartache she put her family through, Rheagan bristles. ?I think anyone would feel guilty,? she says. ?At the end of the day, though, she didn?t say: ?I?m going to put myself in a room with this surgeon and let him perforate my bowel nine times.? She put her trust in a doctor, someone who she thought offered a professional service.?
The surgeon, Dr Gustav Aniansson, took himself off the British Medical Register in 2003 before any action could be taken against him but continues to operate in his native Sweden.
?I have written to the Swedish Medical Council and if he did speak to me I would appreciate it,? says Rheagan. ?He responded in the inquest [in March this year] but he?s not someone who wants to explain himself.?
In the years that followed the initial botched procedure the list of complications continued to build. In 2007, Denise was told she required surgery to reconstruct her damaged stomach wall. Yet, in a cruel twist of fate, it resulted in her bowel being punctured again.
Two years of intravenous tube feeding followed before doctors attempted another surgery to build her a new stomach using muscle grafted from her leg. The operation appeared a success but she contracted a serious infection as bacteria from her stomach spread through her bloodstream and it developed into meningitis.
As Denise slipped in and out of consciousness the gravity of her condition became clear. ?She had the operation on April 23 but by May 5 we knew something wasn?t right,? says Rheagan.
?She was unconscious a lot and when she was awake she didn?t make much sense. The last time I spoke to my mum was on her birthday ? five days before she died. There hadn?t been much movement for a while but on this day she sat up in bed. She told me: ?I love you? and I replied: ?I love you too.? Then she went to sleep and didn?t wake up again.?
Two days later the doctors told the family it was time to switch off Denise?s life support machine. ?They had to withdraw the treatment, they couldn?t keep her alive. Her brain had died.
?We had three days, then the doctor came in on the Friday morning and said they had done the tests they needed to do. On that final day I sang to her. I got into bed with mum and had a cuddle.?
Denise passed away at 10.03pm on July 10, 2009. Rheagan and her siblings had lost their mother, their father Colin his childhood sweetheart.
In the dark months that followed, Rheagan admits to feeling engulfed by the void left by her mother?s death, saying she went numb as she tried to stay strong for everyone else.
?I still look back and think: ?How did we get here?? People often ask if it hurts less as time moves on. If anything I think it hurts more. When you are trying to pick out a wedding dress or your little one is about to start walking, all those things I would love to have shared with her. For the mum she was, it seems so unfair that she has not been here to watch her own child attempt parenthood. Her family was her world.?
Two years on, Rheagan continues to run a daily gauntlet of emotions. ?There are days I feel really angry.Days I feel sad. Days I think people need to own up to things. Days I think people need to back off. Days I wonder: ?Are we doing OK as a family???
Her father, Banffshire-born Colin, nicknamed Braveheart, has gone through a tumultuous time, having been declared bankrupt with reported debts of �2.2 million and admitting to using gambling and alcohol as a coping mechanism for his grief.
?I do feel protective of him,? says Rheagan, her eyes flashing. ?For him [by his standards], the alcohol and gambling was really bad, but it was nowhere near what people think.
?He might have had a few beers to get him through a really bad night or looked at a betting sheet, but it wasn?t to the point where he was excessive or addicted. He was just a man who was trying to fill the time. He had gone from caring for his wife for seven years, his time always being filled with looking after her, to her no longer being here.
?When he was at Clyde [Football Club as manager] he would drive there while I looked after my mum and the kids, then he would drive up north [to Banffshire] to see his dad who was dying. That is a lot for anyone.
?He was trying to deal with the death of his wife. They were together since they were kids, then all of a sudden he was alone with four children. Sometimes people can be too judgemental, they want to keep him on a pedestal, but he?s human too: a dad, a husband, a grandad.?
In December last year, Rheagan gave birth to her daughter, River Denise, despite being told by doctors she might not be able to conceive because she suffers from endometriosis, a condition that causes scarring of the ovaries and fallopian tubes.
?It was a big surprise,? she says. ?I found out I was pregnant on my first Mothers? Day without my mum. Then on the first anniversary of her death I found out I was having a girl. Everything tied in perfectly.? She laughs. ?I thought: ?OK Mum, I get the hint.?
?My dad is besotted with River. It?s brought a light into his life as well. River is the spitting image of my mum ? she has her eyes. She has definitely been here before, I?m convinced my mum must have given a pep talk on the way down.?
Rheagan and her fianc� Matt, 24, a personal trainer, have set a wedding date for 2013. ?We are hoping to get married in Italy. I want it to be low key. My dad will be giving me away ? I think he will be more nervous than I am. I will have River with me ? she is going to be a flower girl. We will pay tribute to my mum as well. We?ve been thinking of ways we can do that.?
Would she be happy to see her father find love again? Rheagan nods. ?Definitely, but love just doesn?t turn up on your doorstep,? she says.
?Matt came into my life at the right time. We met not long after I had lost my mum. I had sworn I didn?t want to be in love because of the pain I had seen my dad go through.?
Rheagan, who is based near Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, has a busy schedule. ?My next project is to get access to parliament to ask them to form regulations with regards to access to voluntary cosmetic surgery for young people,? she says. ?We are facing a huge issue and people need to be educated.?
Having modelled in the past, Rheagan is spearheading a self-conceived Keep It Real campaign which includes setting up her own modelling agency and launching the inaugural Miss Natural UK contest next summer.
?It?s a different sort of agency ? one that doesn?t involve having to fit into a certain size dress for a photo-shoot. We want to break down all the stereotypes. I?m hoping to get a couple of big companies on board.?
Looking to the future, Rheagan says she feels optimistic and strong. ?I could just be another person who falls apart and loses it, but I won?t,? she says.
?I have a daughter and a family. This charity has given me a vision and a way of dealing with the grief. I have drawn so much strength from it. It is a healing process.
?I don?t think you ever stop grieving but it?s about trying to make the most of what you have got.?
Visit www.denisehendry foundation.com
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