18 Months Of New Life With New Lungs

I have now been transplanted 18 months and time has rushed by!!

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was kissing my wife and children goodbye at the operating theatre doors not knowing if I would be saying goodbye for the last time.... and then waking up to a new life.

This last week I have been spending time with my children as they are on half term If it wasn't for my donor I would never have made it to this point. I have been able to see them through to the finish of their education at school and I am able to watch them move on to further education,  my daughter is now half way through her A levels and looking forward to university. While my son is has a offer to start a course in furniture making at the local further education college in September and is really looking forward to it.

I have also had the pleasure this week  of celebrating 25 years since my wife and I first met.

She was a general nurse student on her placement in my hospital, I was a third year student looking towards my final exams. It was her last night at the hospital before returning to Eastbourne where she was training when fate brought us together. We spent that evening  in the hospital social club getting to know each other, it was love at first sight.

 We have been seeing each other ever since and  I love her more with each day we are together

We married while I was waiting for my lung transplant and will celebrate our third anniversary in October, just after my second lung transplant anniversary       

I cant say that it has all been a easy ride I had some problems early on and then got shingles last year and it has taken a while for me to feel myself again and get my confidence back after a long period of chronic illness. I had a long list of things I would do,some of which I have done some are yet to come. 

 The most important have been the little things like; 

• Walking up stairs without worrying about breathlessness.

• Not needing inhalers for my asthma that I suffered from for most of my life.

• Being able to go to events and activities with my children,without them being embarrassed about my oxygen tanks and breathlessness,

• Cooking food on a barbecue or even being around a barbecue without choking and coughing.

• Having confidence in my abilities to look after myself again 

• Being able to have a bath without help

•  last but not least, being alive and not scared that I will die 

All these things are the result of a courageous man who thought about others and his love ones who consented to his wishes..A 45 year old man who I will always be eternally grateful to, signed the donor register and decided that that someone should  live after his death.

I am one of those people!!

Other good things that have happened this last week is that I entered the annual portfolio competition with the following pictures 

Fun at the Fair

It was judged the best digital entry and won first place!!! 

I was so happy this is the second time in four seasons that I have won first place in the digital portfolio:) 

First time I won was my first year in the camera club I have included the pictures that won "my village" in 16.4 2009 before my transplant 

The girl in yellow dancing around the maypole on the right of the picture is my daughter when she was much younger at a school fete at her primary school

I would also urge you to check out the "Transplant People Daily" available by scrolling to bottom of these blog posts now, where you will find an embedded widget.

If you like it please feel free to subscribe:)

Finally I would like you to consider Organ donation if you have not already.help someone like myself or one of the great people I follow on this blog to live a happier and more productive life

You can click the heart here and register now in the UK

Transplant Week Ends - New lives start

Transplant week is over for another year, but that doesn't mean that organ donation stops being needed.
just in case you didn't get to sign up I have included a link here or you can Text SAVE to 84118 

As part of Transplant week Victoria Tremlett who writes the blog "Past the Point of No Return" which you can find on my blog list in the right hand column of this blog prepared a impassioned plea about her time waiting for new lungs

She is still waiting and so are many more people...

I have good news about the end of transplant week while I was tweeting about organ donation last night I recieved a meesage on facebook to say that Kirstie Tancock, who I talked about in my last post, had recieved a call for possible lungs at Harefields Hospital. 

Thoughout the night her family waited for tests to be performed on her blood to check her antibody status, then the agonising wait to see if the lungs were good match and if there forfilled the strict criteria that must be met before they could be transplanted . 

Her husband Stu at 09.10 today wrote; 

 "Well it's been a long night and waiting for the result of each test seems like a nightmare but it has been all worth while when they say it's all going ahead, I know it's such great news to everyone on here and I'm still in shock I would just like to thank the donor and the family for allowing my beautiful wife to have this chance as i'm sure they are going through hell"

At  11.55 today Her sister posted news that her old lungs had been removed

At 14.12 her husband posted that the surgeon had said "it has all gone well" 

At 21.45 Her sister has posted that she is breathing on her own but still sedated 

At 23.08 Kirstie's dad posted this entry on her facebook group  

 Today has been the best day of my life,well thats not quite true getting married was if i didnt say that i would get beat up from the wife. but after hearing kirstie has a 2nd chance of life that means a new pair of lungs how great is that fantasticcccccccccccc. i popped in to see her for a few mins today and had a tear in my eye not of saddness but of joy.

What a great end to transplant week and proof of the good that organ donation can do for a family like kirstie's but let us also remember the donors family that allowed this donation to happen I have such respect for them.

As you may know form a prevoius post about my friend Bree Cordick 

she lost her life because of rare complications after her double lung transplant after having a great new life after transplant and she wrote the blog "The Blog Blog I would strongly advise you to read it. 

I have hosted  "The Blog Blog" on my blog roll for a long while,since before my transplant.She was a great advocate for organ donation and I would like to think that she would want to have Kirstie's blog replace it  and I will maintain a link to it on the links part of my blog to remember my friend:(  

I wish Kirstie all the best and hope she will have a  swift and uneventful recovery and hope that you will follow her progress with interest as she takes the first steps on her 2nd chance @ life

More good news 

 You will also see that another of the blogs I follow is posting good news.

  Jodie  who writes jodiecf.blog.co.uk/

  has had her Lung and Heart transplant on 14th June 2011 and as part of the procedure donated her heart to another recipient and received a new set of Lungs and a new heart.

She had some problems with bleeding and had to undergo more surgery to deal with these problem but has recovered and has just been allowed to return home 27 days after her operation

I would urge you to read her brother 's and father's account of how things happened and if you read back in her blog you will see how hard it has been for her waiting.

I am so glad that she has had her call and can continue to be a mother to her lovely daughter and continue with  her plans to marry John her boyfriend. Hope we will hear more about this soon!!

 I will leave the final words to her brother Kris;

I feel blessed to have witnessed a miracle happen at Papworth. My sister has received the gift of life and in doing so gave the gift of life. Jodie donated her heart during her operation.

Consolidation

5am on Monday 4th October 2010 I was sitting outside the operating theatre on the start of a journey of consolidation that had started over 5 years earlier

It was Sunday night at 1900 when I had got the call, a dinner of roast lamb roast potatoes veg and all the trimmings was sitting on the table in front of me lovingly prepared by my wife .I had just started one of the roast potatoes that were really nice and crunchy and was looking forward to the meal when the home phone rang I knew when the phone was passed to me that it was Harefieilds.

The same feelings were provoked as had been on previous visits but as we had a visit just a while back we were somewhat more prepared and the time of day was unusual. I started to tweet out to a few people online what was happening and posted an entry to my blog and facebook. Tweeeting as I went we headed off though the quiet evening traffic to Harefields when we got there we ran the gamut of tests required then sat and waiting.

This was to be a beating heart donor and all the earlier stages progressed rapidly and without event.

Was this going to be it?

When they finally said that it was a go I was not as shocked as I thought I would be. Not to minimise the weird feeling of finality after a journey that had gone on for so long. We had a while about half a hour to say our goodbyes and I said a prayer with the family before the porters came to take me to the operating theatre. The family went as far as they could till the got to the entrance to the department then I was on my own.

Then next few hours are a blur but I have been told that I came out of the operation at about 11.30am and woke up on ITU several hours later.

It is now nearly two weeks since that day and I will just say it has been an eventful two weeks with a few ups and downs to say the least but I am here, getting better and stronger as the days go by.

The most profound part was waking up and knowing that someone had given their life organs so that I could live a better life I will do all I can to ensure that those organs last as long as I can and have so much respect for them as a Donor and also my heart and sympathy goes out to their brave relatives who gave consent for the procedure to go ahead.

Thank you, whoever you are, for the Gift of life that you have given me.