Successful Lung Transplant
In New Zealand, last night on ‘Sixty Minutes” with Mike McRoberts, 22nd September, 2010, we were given a rare and heart-warming story of a couple’s fight with cystic fibrosis.
This man is supposed to be the oldest surviving person in New Zealand with cystic fibrosis. He was 43 when the documentary began. The reporting team followed the man’s gradual decline in health over a period of time.
With cystic fibrosis. lungs are the organ worst affected. This man’s lungs had become severely damaged, and, in the end, he would not have survived but for the wonders of medical science, and the generosity of an unknown benefactor, who provided him with a new set of healthy lungs.
In 2006, he had a lung transplant which has effectively given him a new lease of life.
He is still alive and doing well today, in 2010, able to live and enjoy his family which include two beautiful young children, and his devoted and caring wife.
These two people have enormous courage. The couple hung together, through thick and thin. The man with cystic fibrosis endured such incredible suffering during these last few years before the transplant, and his wife, I thought, was remarkable in keeping positive, even with the threat of death, at any stage, of her loved one.
It was just great seeing how well and happy they all were after four years of the man living with his new lungs.
I am sure everybody who saw the programme wish you well.
Recovery From Cancer Using Stem Cells:
On Channel One, TVNZ, earlier to Channel 3’s ’60 Minutes”, we were given another heart-warming story of a wee four year-old girl who had a rare form of cancer. She would not have survived, but for the fact that her mother had saved her cord blood from birth, and had had it preserved.
Cord blood has stem cells in it, which can be used to form other cells if they are needed. So, when all other treatments had failed, the mother asked for the cord blood to be transplanted, to see if this might effect a recovery.
It surely did. Her daughter is now a happy and healthy little girl.
Mum must have had an instinct, surely, that this would be needed, when she decided to keep the cord blood at birth. She said that even a year before this miracle of science, she was considering taking the blood out of storage, but decided to go along a bit longer with the storage costs in the meantime.