Doctor treks coast to test new lungs

A DOCTOR is doing a ten-mile hike for charity to try out her new lungs after being given a new lease of life.

Dr Jacqueline Didsbury has Cystic Fibrosis and lost her two sisters to the condition.

But the 29-year-old from Bathgate, West Lothian, had a transplant last year and is now ready to put her new lungs through their paces. She has now put together a team of 116 people for Team Jac to walk from Elie to Leven on the Fife Coastal Path on Saturday, May 9.

She has already surpassed her target of 1000 and raised almost 3000 and is still hoping to pull in a lot more before the event.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah, whose son James Fraser has the disease, have pledged 100 to Jacqueline's campaign.

Dr Didsbury, who specialises in psychiatry, was given a 50 per cent chance of surviving two years on the transplant waiting list when she was placed on it almost three years ago.

She had to wait two years to get the call for the operation in April last year, by which time she was in the end stages of the genetic lung disease.

But the transplant has proved a success. She still has CF and requires daily medication, but her lungs don't behave like CF lungs following the transplant which has given her a much better quality of life.

Sadly she and her parents have had to endure the heartbreaking deaths of her two sisters, Claire and Frances Ann, to CF.

Claire died at the age of six and Frances Ann passed away four years ago, aged just 19. The three sisters inherited the condition from their parents, who are carriers of the deadly gene, although they are not sufferers.

Dr Didsbury is now looking forward to raising money for the Live Life Then Give Life charity.

"Before the surgery I was on oxygen, using a wheelchair and became virtually housebound.

"Since last April I have started to live again. I can meet friends, go shopping, walk my dog Seb – who is my mascot – and I am going back to work.

"I am effectively getting my life back, all because of the generosity of my donor and their family, and I decided to take on a physical challenge to show that I really am putting these new lungs to good use. I am living proof that transplants do work, and do save lives, but sadly there are so many people who are not as lucky.

"I know this only too well having already lost two sisters to CF. My younger sister waited two-and-a-half on the transplant list but that call just never came.

"Over 6500 are waiting on transplants but less than 3000 are carried out per year. There is a huge shortage of organ donors."

The Live Life Then Give Life charity works tirelessly to raise awareness of organ donation, with the aim of increasing the numbers of transplants carried out.

For more information on how to sponsor Dr Didsbury go to www.justgiving.com/teamjac