Life’s simple joys in store for Jasmyn
MASHED potatoes are the first thing 13-year-old Jasmyn Campbell is going to eat when she recuperates from surgery.
The Bayview Heights teen is recovering in Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane after receiving a highlyanticipated kidney yesterday.
Jasmyn received the new kidney because she battled against end-stage renal failure.
Mum Melody Ward said the 2.36am call yesterday confirming a kidney was waiting for Jasmyn in Brisbane was the best call of her life. They had to arrive while the kidney was still viable to be transplanted.
“We’ve both had a lot of mixed emotions,” she said.
“We’re very excited, nervous and happy.”
Ms Ward said the call for a new kidney came as Jasmyn and 10 of her friends were asleep in the house after celebrating Jasmyn’s 13th birthday just three days ago.
“I rang her dad and got him to come over straight away to look after the kids while I got her ready,” she said.
“When I woke her she was teary and we stumbled around the house getting clothes ready. We took the 6am flight down to Brisbane.”
She said it felt like fate for the call to come exactly a year after she first fell ill.
“She’s really excited. I think she mostly just wants a break from dialysis,” Ms Ward said.
“She’s longing for the freedom of not being hooked up to a machine for 11 hours a day.”
Ms Ward and Jasmyn will stay in Brisbane for the next three months. But Ms Ward said Jasmyn had already written a list of things she wanted to do after recovery.
“She hasn’t been able to go swimming since she fell sick, so that’s up there,” she said.
“She’s also wanting to buy bath bombs and take a long bath because she was only allowed to have showers.
“Mostly she’s talking about mashed potatoes. She wasn’t allowed to eat potatoes the whole time she was sick.”
Jasmyn is expected to return to Cairns from late June.
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