TheSun*
YOU could give the greatest gift of all, the gift of life, by joining the NHS Organ Donor Register. But it is essential you also ask your family to respect your wishes. There are currently 6,000 people in desperate need of a transplant.
There are 11.8million Brits on the register but what many do not realise is that their family must still give consent for organ donation – and almost half refuse. Here five people tell why they need life-changing transplants:
Jessica Holling
Liver
Mention liver transplants and most people think of alcoholics and George Best. But Jessica Holling is just 17 and desperately needs a new liver. When she was three, Jessica was diagnosed with colitis - an inflammatory bowel disease.
Years of inflammation have led to a more serious complication called primary sclerosing cholangitis, where bile ducts in her liver have become blocked by scar tissue. This causes a build-up of bile that damages the liver and prevents it regenerating. It also reduces the blood's ability to carry oxygen.
The condition is so rare that when Jessica, from Birmingham, first began to deteriorate three years ago, doctors thought she had pneumonia. Further investigations revealed it was PSC and she had a liver transplant. Tragically the donor organ had CMV, a commonplace infection that most of us carry without any ill effects. But Jessica had never been exposed to it and had little resistance. She says: "That made me really poorly. I ended up in intensive care, being ventilated. "Ever since then I have stayed on oxygen and it's gradually got worse."
Problems with a duct within the liver also mean that Jessica's temperature can suddenly soar. The day after her photograph on the right was taken, Jessica was admitted to hospital for an intensive course of intravenous antibiotics.
She could still be there at Christmas. She says: "I don't think people realise they could save my life. And it's not just one life - a liver can be split and used for two people. "George Best has done a lot of harm. The damage he's done cannot be mended now. "I don't think people realise how many kids need livers. It's not all alcoholics."
Joseph Nicholls
Eye
UNTIL recently, ten-month-old Joseph Nicholls would have faced a future without sight. He was born with Peter's Anomaly, a rare condition in which the cornea - the lens covering the eye - is cloudy.
Mum Bridget, from Milton Keynes, Bucks, says: "When he was born he looked as if he had cataracts. But we are lucky. Five years ago they wouldn't have been able to do anything." When Joseph was five weeks old doctors at London's Great Ormond Street hospital transplanted a donor cornea into his right eye. Bridget says: "It only took 90 minutes but it was the longest time of my life. "They had to do one transplant early otherwise the brain would not have developed the ability to transmit and receive the right messages to and from the eyes." Bridget and husband John saw a difference immediately.
Bridget says: "He seemed to pay a lot more attention to our faces and started reaching for things."
Now he is waiting for a cornea for the second eye. Corneas are one of the simplest of all transplants. They can also be preserved for long periods out of the body and do not have to be an exact match in terms of size. Bridget says: "A lot of people feel a bit squeamish about it but I'm sure a lot of people would like to be on the Organ Donor Register who just haven't got around to it. Please make it your New Year's resolution."
Lucy Bateman
Kidney
LITTLE Lucy Bateman's sunny smile hides the fact that she has no kidneys - and a transplant is her only hope of a normal life.
The lively four-year-old is only alive today thanks to ten hours of dialysis nightly and the devotion of parents Jenny and Graham. Jenny says: "We want to keep her forever and we know that getting a new kidney is her only chance." Everything seemed perfect when Lucy was born in April 2000. Jenny says: "For the first five months she was fine. Then I suddenly noticed she looked yellow and jaundiced." Lucy's condition worsened rapidly and doctors discovered she had a rare blood disorder that made her red cells attack her kidneys. After many weeks of treatment in hospital she was finally strong enough to return to her home in Halesowen, West Midlands. But at nine months Lucy was back in hospital with a severe chest infection. Jenny says: "We were told she had a 50/50 chance of survival. All her organs failed. She was on life support for five days. That was the worst time. We had never been prepared for her to get that ill." In May one of Lucy's kidney's became so damaged doctors removed it. Then in October the second one was taken out. Jenny says: "Lucy is so sweet, funny and lively. Every day we live with the fear we might lose her. We are on a constant knife-edge. A transplant could make such a huge difference."
Kerry Flavell
Heart and lungs
KERRY was born with a hole in her heart and had corrective surgery when just six.
During the operation surgeons discovered that the two main chambers of her heart were the wrong way round.
It wasn't a problem at first but by the time Kerry was 21 it was causing massive water retention and placing a dangerous strain on her cardiovascular system.
Doctors hoped a second op, carried out last year, would resolve the problem.
But it failed and Kerry, from Coventry, became desperate for a donor heart and lungs.
She had to go into hospital every two months to have litres of fluid drained from her body.
Aged 24, Kerry told us: "I have a very restricted life. When I'm full up with water I have to sleep downstairs because I can't get up to my bedroom.
"I suffer from terrible cramps because I lose so much potassium and sodium. If I had been like this all my life it might be easier but it happened when I was 21, I was used to going out clubbing, so it's hard to come to terms with."
Kerry and boyfriend John Mitchelson planned to marry last year but cancelled the ceremony because she was so ill. She said: "I just wish people were more aware of the difference they could make. If people could see the life I lead, they would put a donor card in their pocket." Kerry died in her sleep yesterday. Her mother, Lorraine Chamberlain, asked us to publish Kerry's story to encourage more people to join the donor register. Lorraine said: "Kerry loved the photo-shoot. She really enjoyed everything, having her hair done, she was like a princess. "Please go on the donor register. That's the message Kerry wanted to get out. "It's too late for her, but there are so many people who could have a chance of life."
Huw Barnes
Pancreas and kidney
IT was during the long hot summer of 1976 that Huw Barnes's parents realised something was wrong. He had an unquenchable thirst, was losing weight and was constantly tired. After he collapsed in the GP's surgery he was diagnosed, at the age of nine, with Type-1 diabetes. He has been on insulin ever since and - after practising on oranges (the texture is supposed to be similar) - was soon back at school, administering his own injections.
Huw, now 38, and a partner in a company that makes ready meals for children, says: "I've always done my own own injections. It gives you independence." Then five years ago a routine hospital check revealed Huw's kidneys were failing - a complication of diabetes.
He says: "I was put on medication, then two years ago I started on peritoneal dialysis."
Huw, from Nelson, Mid Glamorgan, says: "It gives me more freedom and flexibility. I have a tube going into my stomach and there are a series of valves you turn on and off to allow gravity to take the fluid in and out. "There's always two litres of fluid in my stomach cavity so it gives me a little bit of a beer belly." It can also be uncomfortable as the fluid drains.
Huw adds: "When it's sucking the liquid out it's like a little vacuum - I won't tell you where it hurts." A pancreas and kidney transplant would end Huw's painful dialysis and be a short-term diabetes cure. He says: "A lot of my friends will be surprised when they see this - a lot of them don't know. I'm not in this for some sort of sympathy vote. I don't want that. "I'd rather just be Mr Average Joe Bloggs - and a transplant would let me do that." "
