BRAVE Lianne Mofford missed out on a trip to DisneyWorld because she was too sick to travel - but got the gift of life instead.

And her own heart and lung transplant meant the teenager also saved the life of another youngster.

The 17-year-old, from Humber Close, Didcot, who suffers from the lung disease cystic fibrosis, is recovering from her op at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire.

Although only her lungs were affected, surgeons believed the swap would be easier if her heart was replaced at the same time.

This meant her own heart could be used in a transplant on another child.

Clive Polley, Lianne's stepfather, said: "The operation was only seven days ago and she has done half an hour's walking in the gym. She has not walked that far in years.

"She's starving hungry and she's not had an appetite for five years. It's amazing.

"I now know what the term 'emotional roller-coaster' means. It was such a feeling of being on a high.

"She's started to realise what she's capable of. It's a revelation."

Lianne, who weighed just five stone before the op, received her organs from a teenager killed in a car smash.

Lianne's sister Shanie, 16, who also has cystic fibrosis, said: "She's doing fine. She's back on to a normal ward. My mum thinks it's brilliant."

Lianne was one of a group of young sufferers being treated at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital who were due to make the trip of a lifetime to DisneyWorld in Florida.

Lianne's mum Jacqui helped drive a huge fundraising effort at the Didcot Wave Leisure Centre, where she works as a receptionist.

But in the end Lianne could not join the other youngsters because she was too weak to travel.

Another mum, Jan Langford, of Hardwick Avenue, Kidlington, took her son James, nine, on the trip. She said the party of seven kids and their families had the holiday of their lives.

"It was a magical trip for the children and fantastic for parents. It was brilliant. My son said: 'I think all my dreams have come true.'

"It was so nice to get home and find Lianne had had a transplant. All our kids' dreams have come true and now Lianne's have as well." She said the trip came about when parents discovered there was still some money in an account raised for them by the Leyton House Racing Team in Bicester. Parents then paid for brothers and sisters out of their own pockets.

Lianne, a member of Didcot Sixth Form, has received a card from fellow pupils.

The school's special needs coordinator Liz Cooper said: "She is a lovely, friendly, warm person.

"She makes friends easily and although she's not been in school for quite a while the pupils have a lot of respect for her."

She added that Lianne was an extremely conscientious student determined to carry on with her studies despite her illness.

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