RECEIVING an organ is always a life-changing experience but Jill Edwards knows just how valuable a new lease of life can be, 24 years after having a heart transplant.

In the months leading up to Christmas 1990 she was in the same position as 51 people across Oxfordshire today, desperately waiting to hear a donor had been found.

Her wish was finally granted that November and now the 73-year-old from Carterton is urging people to give someone in the same situation as she was the gift of life.

She has lent her support to a campaign by the Life Saver group, made up of medics, to try to increase the number of donors.

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With less than half of eligible county residents signed up, the Oxford Mail has thrown its weight behind the campaign.

Mrs Edwards said: “People do not think about it, they do not realise that one signature for free will do it.

“It is one gift you can give at Christmas which will not cost anything, it is priceless.

“I do not think there is enough awareness. There is beginning to be more but we are not there yet.”

The mother of three and grandmother of five was working as a secretary in 1990 when she started to experience sharp chest pains.

She was sent to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where it was discovered she had a condition which causes the muscles of the heart to thicken.

She was given just months to live but in November 1990, after six weeks on the transplant waiting list, she was given the news that an organ had been found.

She said: “A young man up in Scotland died and I got his heart.

“Even after the transplant, the doctors told me I had a 40 per cent chance of living five years and that would be good. I have kind of exceeded that and it has been a fantastic 24 years, it has just flown by.

“When I look back I have led a very normal life, done lots of sport and tried to raise awareness, but it is so slow getting anywhere.”

Mrs Edwards is now retired but still swims 50 lengths a week and competes in the national and international transplant games, winning more than 100 medals.

But she has never forgotten the importance of that gift just before Christmas 1990.

She said: “I would not be here unless that young man had decided to sign up to the register. I just wish more people would do it.”

NHS director of organ donation and transplantation Sally Johnson said people waiting for organ donations at Christmas were in a particularly difficult situation.

She said: “Every year thousands of patients on the waiting list in Oxfordshire and around the country have a Christmas clouded with anxiety and uncertainty.

“Some severely ill people might spend the whole of Christmas in hospital, just hoping they get a life-saving transplant.

“While for others, their condition may mean they can’t enjoy Christmas traditions like the rest of us.”


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