5 Wonderful Years!
 

Yesterday was my 5th transplant anniversary - what a fantastic milestone if I do say so myself ;-)  These are the lovely flowers Andrew got me.   I was at work in the morning, running around telling everyone how important the day was haha!  In the afternoon I was giving a talk at the Regional Collaborative Meeting - this is essentially key players in organ donation, ITU and A+E consultants - all the people involved with identification of donors and dealing with donor families in Scotland.  I was really there to give them the recipient perspective as they never actually hear what happens to the organs afterwards or meet anyone who has been saved by their good work.  It was great being able to give this insight, while also being able to emphasise how grateful transplant recipients are to their donor and families.  It put a face to a process that many of the doctors find difficult.   I tried to keep things fairly light hearted as well - I noticed they had made an organ donor card cake (to celebrate the increase in donors over past year) so my opening quip was to thank them for baking me an anniversary cake  :P

It just seems like yesterday that I had that call.....but looking back now, I have also done so much since then! 

Back to work in a permanent post for past 4 years (only few days sick leave and that was 3 yrs ago!) and becoming much more involved with projects at work, knowing that I am going to have the energy to see them through.  

Lots of holidays with Andrew - Paris, Berlin, Sorrento, Cyprus, Cape Verde, Nice....to Florida with family and big family holiday to Tuscany, to Copenhagen with my best friend, to London with Victoria and lots of sneaky weekends between.   13 weddings ( and being Maid of Honour for Sarah), several Christenings and becoming a Godmother to Caoimhe.

Countless organ donor desks, talking to schools, to NHS Staff, pulmonary rehab teams, CF teams..and goodness knows who else :P  Lots of fundraising - the big Team Jac walk raising over £26,000 for LLTGL and then as Team Glasgow, our posh balls, halloween parties, swap shop - together raising £26, 240 to date for LLTGL, Butterfly Trust, CF trust and Gartnavel CF unit :-)

We somehow managed to build an extension in the middle of it all and redecorate the whole house - madness ;-)   Have also met so many lovely people over the past 5 years!

So, yes where did 5 years go?  I know exactly where they went!  It's great that I have been well enough to do all this and I hold onto how lucky I am every day.  Yesterday we were thinking of my donor and her family - and celebrating the gift they gave us all.

It's been an emotionally taxing week - I also gave two talks at George Heriot school earlier in the week.  So to be honest, I plan to not talk about organ donation for a little while!  I think we will just chill out and enjoy ourselves this weekend  :-)

Birthdays and Organ Donation Talks

Seems to have been a busy few weeks for organ donation work - and people will no doubt have read the great news this week that donations have increased by 50% in the last 5 years.  This is largely due to the amazing work of donor coordinators working in hospitals.  These nurses are independent of the transplant team and are able to speak with families in a sensitive manner about the idea of donation.  Allowing families this opportunity has led to a marked increase in those agreeing to donation.  To increase this even further, we do still need people to sign up and make the decision even easier for their loves ones.  I am actually not pro opt-out (being introduced in Wales) because I do think that removing this choice could paradoxically increase the number of relatives refusing.   There are many changes to infrastructure and management of organ donation that can make a huge difference, all of these issues currently being tackled by the organ donor task force.  Finally though, from the recipient perspective, it is important for me to know that my donor gifted these lungs to me and that her family agreed.  I would not like to think that they had been just taken, as it is not my right to receive them.  It is an honour!

I helped out some media students last week, who were creating a short film about organ donation as part of their module.  Victoria was planning to meet them for a video interview but unfortunately became unwell with the 'flu virus, so I stepped in at the last minute.  They filmed me answering various questions on the topic and will be editing this within the next couple of weeks.  I will get to see the final project but whether I share it will be dependant on how cringe worthy I am!!  I also met with another student doing a masters in Design who is completing a project and dissertation around organ donation - with more emphasis on the link between recipient and donor/donor family.  It sounds a fascinating topic and I look forward to seeing the final work when it will be on show at the art school.   I have two upcoming talks  - one with George Heriot School and another with at the Regional Collaborative Meeting (main people involved with organ donation in Scotland).  It is all rather fitting given my 5th transplant anniversary will be on the 25th of this month.....although after that I think I might not want to talk about it for a wee while!!

On a lighter note it was my birthday last week and I was 34 years young!   I had a lovely day :-)  I did have to go to work in the morning but I left at lunch time and went into town to meet Andrew for a wee lunch.  Then mum and dad came in the afternoon and brought dinner and cake!  I got lots of lovely gifts with a dominant theme of animals, mainly owls haha!  There are so many owl themed gifts in the shops just now that I now have a wide selection of owl products ;-)   

Panda card from andrew!!

New shoes!

Hotty Hooty (for microwave ;-))

Owl things

Cake!

Seb eating my nose!

The last few weeks have also been nice and dry, so Seb has been on lots of long walks at the park or river.   Seeing him running around like a fluffy mad thing does make it very worth while!

After his bath!