But after a month of persistent symptoms, she learned she had contracted a rare flu-like virus and was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy — an enlarged heart muscle.
"I remember I sat down and this doctor was looking at my feet and stuff and I’m like, yeah, this is the bit where I’ve gone too far and told him too much is wrong with me. And he said, ‘Well actually I think you’ve got heart failure and I think you need to go to intensive care’."
In April 1997, after being seen by a specialist, who took her young age and otherwise good health into consideration, she was sent home for six weeks to see if her heart would heal itself.
"Here’s this cardiologist leaning over me going, ‘Yeah, I don’t know how to say this to you ...’ And I’m thinking, this is a little bit of a random dream."
She was told if her heart could not heal itself within the six weeks, she would need a heart transplant.
When she returned to the hospital, her condition had deteriorated.
"I remember the doctor saying to me, ‘We don’t usually offer transplants to people that are not going to live any more than a year’. And that’s actually a really big thing to swallow at 23. That’s huge."
She said her Christian faith helped her cope with going into surgery and knowing there was the chance she wouldn’t survive.
"I guess with having a very strong faith and waking up in heaven. Yeah, that [wouldn’t be] all bad. I would have felt bad about leaving everybody else behind, but I thought I was winning. Yeah, I still do I guess a wee bit.
"It’s been a huge, huge part of how I processed it all."
Mrs Bungard became one of the first people in New Zealand to undergo a heart transplant — but despite the success of the surgery, she was told she may have only five to 10 years to live.
"Back then transplant patients were often older and they were often gentlemen, and they offered you five years, or three to five years ... And that was just enough for you to see your grandchildren grow a little bit more."
Defying the odds (and the predictions of several medical professionals), Mrs Bungard is now celebrating her 25th year since the transplant — she is also the second female heart transplant to have given birth, going through a monitored pregnancy and giving birth by Caesarean to Ruben, now 20, and Katie, now 16, three years later.
"I think, even having the children, this is a miracle. An absolute miracle. And even now, when I look at them, I still think this is ... we’re just living a miracle from day to day. This is incredible."
Mrs Bungard said celebrating 25 years of having the transplant in the same year as her 48th birthday was not something she took lightly, and that she was living every day with an extra spring in her step.
"I think sometimes people go, ‘Oh, it’s just another birthday’. I’m like, ‘You have no idea’. The thought that I could live to my 50th birthday, it just didn’t even enter my head. I remember when the church celebrated my 30th birthday. And we all stood there and said ‘Wow, imagine you didn’t think you could make it to 30’.
By Ben Tomsett
