IT’S so cold - Those were the words of a young man who took in a big breath of fresh air after a double lung transplant.
Luke Palfreyman, 23, of Monk Bretton, had been on the transplant list for 18 months, and had spent three extremely poorly in hospital.
He was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition that causes sticky mucus to build up in the lungs for which there is no cure.
Luke, a trained mechanic, was seriously ill earlier this year and desperately needed the transplant.
In February, he had already been in St James’s in Leeds for three months because he was so poorly doctors didn’t want to let him home.
He couldn’t walk more than a couple of yards, was on oxygen and only had ten per cent lung function.
There were a few calls that lungs were available while Luke was on the transplant list, but they turned out to be false alarms as the lungs were not suitable.
Claire Grant, Luke’s aunt, has been a nurse for 28 years and has a professional and personal perspective on what her nephew went through.
She said: “Luke had progressive end stage lung disease and was very ill and it was all about keeping him well enough to receive a transplant.
“The disappointment was excruciating. Luke kept being taken on and off the recipient register because he was too ill to have the operation. They took him off in December when there were some lungs available for him but he was too ill to get them.”
But then another call came.
“Luke was finally well enough to have the operation and went into surgery. The surgery took approximately nine hours and Luke was spontaneously breathing straight after the operation.
“After the surgery, he was in intensive care for two days then moved to the wards. I took him out on the third day post operation, it was really cold in February, and I said ‘breathe in.’ He said ‘It’s so cold!’
“He didn’t know what it was like to take in a big breath of fresh air.”
With intense physiotherapy and excellent care from Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire, Luke was discharged after four weeks.
Over the last six months, he has focussed on gaining weight and building muscle strength.
There is still a risk of organ rejection and Luke has had one infection since his transplant.
He has to take a lot of medication and has to have an examination of his airways under sedation every month.
But he now has a sense of his future. He has a dog called Junior, and his perspective on life has changed.
Claire, who works at Barnsley Hospital, said: “We had years of torture watching him deteriorate but now, with his new lungs, he has 95 per cent lung function.”
Clare says it’s ‘just luck’ that people receive donated organs which save their lives. In England, doctors can only remove organs from people who are registered.
A new opt-out system dubbed Max’s Law will be in place by 2020, if Parliament approves it, meaning adults could be presumed organ donors unless they have specifically confirmed their decision not to be.
Claire said: “Some people think organ donation is ‘gory’, there are religious reasons why people can’t donate, and people just don’t want to talk about death.
“The truth is that there is a lot of ignorance about organ donation.
“But once you experience what it can do, you wouldn’t consider not going on the donor register.
“It never ceases to amaze me both as a nurse and a relative of a recipient, how from one unfortunate death, organ donation can give multiple people the gift of life, and can in turn, make hundreds of people the recipient’s friends and family renew their own lust for life in their gratitude. I’ve seen it time and time again as a nurse, and now I’ve experienced it as a relative.
“Never underestimate the power of this gift. I will never stop promoting this, educating people and fighting against the systems that discourage it. My family were lucky, but thousands aren’t, so I will fight for them.”
