\n<\/p>\n
At the age of 15, medics feared Katie Mitchell was coming to the end of her life after suffering irreversible lung damage and heart failure from a rare congenital disease.<\/p>\n
But she defied the odds thanks to a heart and lung transplant, and at the age of 53 she has become the UK\u2019s longest-surviving recipient of such a procedure.<\/p>\n
Mitchell was diagnosed with Eisenmenger syndrome when she was 11. She had high blood pressure in her pulmonary arteries which caused an increased resistance to blood flow through the lungs, which led to irreversible lung damage and heart failure.<\/p>\n
Mitchell had her combined transplant at Royal Papworth hospital in September 1987, a procedure so rare that only about five are carried out in the UK each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to organ donation, I was given the gift of a normal life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think about my donor a lot, especially on the anniversary of the transplant. I think about their family and what their family must have felt at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just know my donor was a young female. Her family made that decision at a terrible time in their lives. I am so grateful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite difficult to put into words how it feels to know I am now the longest-lived heart-lung recipient in the UK. It\u2019s mixed feelings.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Katie Mitchell on a treadmill during her recovery after her transplant<\/span> Photograph: NHSBT\/PA<\/p>\n \u201cPeople I know who had the same transplant have passed away in front of me, but it\u2019s a blessing and amazing to feel I\u2019ve had all this extra time.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t really know why it has worked so well. Perhaps the immunosuppressants suit me well. Everybody has so many different reactions to the medications, and everyone has their own regimen.\u201d<\/p>\n There are currently 8,124 people on the UK transplant waiting list, including 12 waiting for a heart and lung transplant.<\/p>\n Mitchell\u2019s transplant is functioning well. She also had two kidney transplants from deceased donors in 1994 and 2015.<\/p>\n Mitchell, from Sidcup in south-east London, said: \u201cI went to an event at Papworth and there were a couple of young women who had their heart-lung transplants recently.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI think it did them good and their parents good to see how long I and other people have lived.<\/p>\n \u201cVery often people are told they might only get five or 10 years with a heart or a lung transplant. To be able to see me and other people who had lived for many years made a big difference to them.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my story is just proof that organ donation and transplantation does work and you can live a normal life.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitchell, who is married and has a stepdaughter, is backing NHS Blood and Transplant\u2019s call for people to confirm their support for donation on the NHS organ donor register.<\/p>\n Marius Berman, the surgical lead for transplant at Royal Papworth hospital NHS foundation trust, said: \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to see Katie continuing to live life to the full, 38 years on from her transplant.<\/p>\n \u201cTo see it succeed so profoundly is testament to the skill of many NHS teams, the generosity of donors and the resilience of patients like Katie.<\/p>\n \u201cHer journey offers real hope to others currently waiting for transplants and reminds us all of the importance of organ donation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the age of 15, medics feared Katie Mitchell was coming to the end of her life after suffering irreversible lung damage and heart failure from a rare congenital disease. But she defied the odds thanks to a heart and lung transplant, and at the age of 53 she has become the UK\u2019s longest-surviving recipient<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[3411,6939,10742,1229,9043,1760,1070,668],"class_list":{"0":"post-27667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-heart","9":"tag-longest","10":"tag-lung","11":"tag-nhs","12":"tag-survivor","13":"tag-transplant","14":"tag-uks","15":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}