Mother receives heart and lung transplant after waiting just six hours

ABC NEWS (Australia)

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.

Transcript

00:00These are the moments Tina Leigh always dreamed of.

00:08Her curly-haired son Henry turned one in October, a milestone Tina feared she wouldn't see.

00:17There's no words to really describe what it feels like to have another chance at life.

00:23The 40-year-old lives with cystic fibrosis, a life-limiting genetic condition that affects the lungs and digestive system.

00:31When she was little, her parents were given a grim prognosis.

00:35They were told that I wouldn't see my fifth birthday.

00:37But Tina has had luck on her side many times over.

00:42Ten years ago, she received a double lung transplant.

00:45She met her partner Tom on holiday.

00:48And when Henry was born, doctors extended her life with the experimental use of an arthritis drug.

00:59But it didn't halt the rejection of her lungs.

01:02And earlier this year, she was left with little time to live unless she had another transplant.

01:08When 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.

01:14But she did get the call, just six hours later.

01:18That's never happened to us before, that it's happened that quickly.

01:21In an eight-hour operation, a team of highly skilled and modest clinicians gave the high school teacher her new heart and lungs.

01:30The heart and the lung, all the connections are left in place.

01:33You put that into the chest, and then there's really only four things you have to join up.

01:39It's just plumbing.

01:40Most patients needing an organ transplant can wait up to 12 months or longer, if they make it.

01:47Tina is alive because one family put its own grief aside and donated a loved one's organs.

01:55When love and science come together, beautiful things happen.

01:58And I think that's a culmination of what donation and transplantation is.

02:03I feel like it was a complete miracle.

02:06I feel so blessed that it happened as quick as it did.

02:10For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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