Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
INSPIRATIONAL TALE OF ONE GIRL’S
Weighing just four stone, it’s little wonder Linzi Saunders woke up after surgery and asked for toast. Despite being hooked up to machines in intensive care, the 20-year-old just wanted to get on with it.
Except this was no routine operation, it was her third organ transplant – but then Linzi has always defied expectations...
The art student has battled leukaemia, faced a 40% chance of survival and had a bone marrow and heart transplant along with her new kidney.
She says: “I am so grateful the family of my heart donor decided to say yes and donate. It must be such an emotional and sensitive time for them – and they thought of others while in that sad situation.
“Each transplant I’ve had has helped me so much to continue the life I love. I feel very blessed to have been so lucky.”
She is relishing her new lease of life... “Since having the transplant, I felt better straight away and I live my life now,” she says. “As soon as I woke up I forgot I was in intensive care and wanted some toast. I was hungry straight away after not eating or drinking for so long.
“Everything tasted so good. I just wanted to get up and walk around but I was attached to all the wires. On the third day I was on the treadmill in the hospital.”
Linzi, of Sunderland, is backing the Daily Mirror’s campaign to change the organ donation laws from an opt-in system to an opt-out one – fronted by Max Johnson, 11, who had a new heart in 2017 after an eight-month wait.
Now 21, Linzi says her family have been on the organ donation register for years. She adds: “Organ donation is so important because it helps people like me and Max to live our lives again.
“It should definitely be an opt-out system if it helps to save lives and get people on the list.”
Linzi’s ordeal started when she was diagnosed with two different kinds of blood cancer at 18 months old.
She had a new treatment to cure her and needed a bone marrow transplant from her 13-year-old brother James, now 33, which was a success.
At eight, Linzi began to experience problems with her heart caused by the treatment she had as a child.
She was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, meaning the organ could no longer pump blood around her body – and she would need a new heart.
The family waited for five weeks for one to become available.
She says: “I went into Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital on December 4, 2005. I don’t remember a huge amount about it.
“I probably knew what was going on in my own little head but I didn’t want to have a conversation about it.”
With mum Michelle, 50, and dad James, 53, by her side, Linzi recovered fast, returning home in time for Christmas on December 23. As she healed, she finished school and went to college with her friends.
But it was there she caught norovirus in 2014, which damaged her already weak kidneys.
Linzi became progressively worse and, after finding herself unable to eat or drink, she dropped to a tiny four stone.
Doctors said she would need a transplant and a year-long journey to find a donor began. While Linzi’s family and friends were all tested she continued to go to college to complete her course with her mates, only taking an occasional half day off.
Her family were not a match but luckily her sister Kay’s mother-in-law Linda Taylor was a near-perfect one and happy to be a donor.
The year-long process of testing Linda and ensuring it was the right decision for her started. Linzi said: “That year was really strange as I’d only met Linda a few times but it brought us closer together. “It’s really weird now if I see her at a family party because it’s so hard to say