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Mother receives heart and lung transplant after waiting just six hours
ABC NEWS (Australia)
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12/18/2024
A Queensland woman has received life-saving heart and lung transplants just six hours after she was placed on the waiting list. The 40-year-old mother - who has cystic fibrosis - says she considers herself incredibly lucky to be alive.
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00:00
These are the moments Tina Leigh always dreamed of.
00:08
Her curly-haired son Henry turned one in October, a milestone Tina feared she wouldn't see.
00:17
There's no words to really describe what it feels like to have another chance at life.
00:23
The 40-year-old lives with cystic fibrosis, a life-limiting genetic condition that affects the lungs and digestive system.
00:31
When she was little, her parents were given a grim prognosis.
00:35
They were told that I wouldn't see my fifth birthday.
00:37
But Tina has had luck on her side many times over.
00:42
Ten years ago, she received a double lung transplant.
00:45
She met her partner Tom on holiday.
00:48
And when Henry was born, doctors extended her life with the experimental use of an arthritis drug.
00:59
But it didn't halt the rejection of her lungs.
01:02
And earlier this year, she was left with little time to live unless she had another transplant.
01:08
When I left the hospital, in my mind, I thought I'm going home to die because I didn't think I would get that call in time.
01:14
But she did get the call, just six hours later.
01:18
That's never happened to us before, that it's happened that quickly.
01:21
In an eight-hour operation, a team of highly skilled and modest clinicians gave the high school teacher her new heart and lungs.
01:30
The heart and the lung, all the connections are left in place.
01:33
You put that into the chest, and then there's really only four things you have to join up.
01:39
It's just plumbing.
01:40
Most patients needing an organ transplant can wait up to 12 months or longer, if they make it.
01:47
Tina is alive because one family put its own grief aside and donated a loved one's organs.
01:55
When love and science come together, beautiful things happen.
01:58
And I think that's a culmination of what donation and transplantation is.
02:03
I feel like it was a complete miracle.
02:06
I feel so blessed that it happened as quick as it did.
02:10
For more UN videos visit www.un.org
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