Post by son-of-tiny on Jan 14, 2007 18:30:49 GMT
[glow=red,2,300]Dad awaits life-saving transplant[/glow]
EVERY time the phone rings
Ivan Flavell wonders if this is the call which will save his life.
Ivan is waiting for a transplant after chronic emphysema has rendered his lungs virtually useless.
The 49-year-old father-of-four, of Duke Street, Elland, has to crawl on all fours to get upstairs to his bedroom and has to stop half-way up to rest. He has oxygen piped into every room in the house, apart from the kitchen, to help him breathe properly and he requires nasal oxygen every night while he is asleep.
Ivan, who also has coronary heart disease, is one of more than 8,000 people in the UK waiting for an organ transplant. He is also painfully aware of the fact that he could become one of the 400 people who die in the UK every year while they wait for an organ to become available.
According to UK Transplant, which manages the National Transplant Database, there is currently a critical shortage of organs, and the gap between the number of organs donated and the number of people waiting for a transplant is increasing.
Ivan, who was placed on the transplant list last October, and his wife Ann know they could have a long wait ahead of them – adults wait an average of 394 days for a lung to become available.
In the meantime, Ann continues to be his full-time carer and the couple have adjusted their lives to try to get along the best they can.
"It is very sad that someone has to die so that I can live, but a lung transplant will give me my life back," says Ivan.
"I want to go back to work, but at the moment I can't even put a nail in the door without being out of breath. I'm 49 but have the body of a 65-year-old."
Ivan says the organ shortage is due to a lack of awareness about the donor register.
"But some people don't consider it because they think nothing will happen to them," he says. "Some people say they will do it and then never get around to it. I would urge anybody who has thought about being a donor to join the register."
Ivan first noticed his health wasn't as it should be when he joined the Army's Royal Tank Regiment in 1974 at just 17 years old.
"I only just got through my basic training," he recalls. "I remember looking at the others who had shot off in front of me and thinking I must be really unfit. I had the corporal behind me shouting that this was my last chance and I literally just scraped through."
But it wasn't until seven years later in August, 1981 that Ivan ended up in hospital.
"I was working as a wagon driver at the time," he says. "I'd been up early delivering great sacks of potatoes to Bradford Royal Infirmary and came home with the intention of going back to bed."
Ann came to see what he was up to in the bathroom and found him leaning against the sink.
"He said his shoulder blade was really hurting him and thought he had pulled a muscle lugging the big sacks that morning," she says. "He ended up laying on the floor and then got to the point where he couldn't exhale air."
Ann called an ambulance and Ivan was taken back to the hospital where he had been delivering that morning. He was diagnosed with a pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and following treatment, returned home. But four months later the same thing happened.
"I was treated again and then returned home and carried on with life," explains Ivan, who worked at the former Firth Carpets, Bailiff Bridge, for 11 years. "Then, some time in the 1980s I started suffering really badly with indigestion and had it for years. It got worse and worse to the point that soon I couldn't keep any food down at all."
Ivan was diagnosed with an acid reflux problem, and in 1997 was admitted for surgery to correct the problem at Bradford Royal Infirmary. During his recovery he recalls one of the doctors recognising him as the patient with the 'athlete's lungs'. Ivan, not realising the doctor was being sarcastic, was pleased with this description as Ann was forever making fun of him for being unfit and out of breath a lot of the time. But Ivan was soon to realise just exactly what that doctor had meant.
He had started working as a forklift truck driver for the former Kosset Carpets at Brookfoot.
"I always seemed to be out of breath," he explains. "And whenever I tried to pull myself into the truck I was getting a sharp pain in my shoulder blade."
When Ivan returned to the hospital for a post-operative check-up for his surgery, he mentioned the troubles he had been having to the doctor.
"He just went quiet and started leafing through my notes," he says. "And then he said I would be getting those symptoms because during the surgery they had noticed my lungs were riddled with emphysema and they had removed part of my left lung."
Ivan and Ann were flabbergasted; no-one had mentioned this to them before, and they urged the doctor to check they were the right notes.
"But he said they were my notes and I should go back to my doctor," says Ivan.
He returned to his GP who referred him to the Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax.
"I was given nebulisers and inhalers and told there was nothing else they could do for me, and to go home and live with it," he recalls. "But I really wasn't happy with that, I wasn't going to just lie down and accept it. I said I wanted to go back to see the surgeon who had operated on me.
"He was shocked when he saw me again because he thought I would be dead," laughs Ivan. "He sent me on a pulmonary rehabilitation course to show me how to breathe differently and strengthen what little lung capacity I had. I went on the course but I couldn't breathe like I was being told to and kept passing out, so I wasn't allowed back; they barred me."
Ivan is laughing as he tells me this story, despite the seriousness of his condition.
"I have to laugh about it, otherwise I would just cry," he says. "Me and Ann enjoy joking about, it's the only way we can cope with it."
When Ivan returned to see the consultant in 1999 he was told he would be dead within two years if he did not have a lung transplant and was transferred to Wythenshawe Hospital, a centre of excellence in Manchester.
At the start of the new millennium, tests were carried out to determine Ivan's suitability as a candidate for transplant. He was told that he was 'too well' for the transplant.
"You have to meet a certain criteria to qualify," explains Ivan. "The aim is to give me a better quality of life. At the time I was well enough to live for a few years, but if I had the operation I had a 50 per cent chance of dying on the table, so they decided not to go ahead."
Ivan continued seeing his GP and his condition was constantly monitored.
"I was starting to feel terrible," he says. "I really felt like I was going down the pan. I was getting to the point where I could do less and less and seemed to be constantly laid on the sofa with my oxygen because I couldn't do anything else."
Ivan was once again referred back to Bradford who referred him on to Manchester again.
During this time Ivan was also suffering from seizures (thought to have been brought on by a reaction to medication he was taking at the time).
In August 2005 he went back to Manchester for reassessment of his suitability for transplant surgery and was told the transplant team would meet up and discuss his case. Just before Christmas that year he was once again told he was not suitable, but this time it was because he was too ill.
"I went back to see my GP and she went up the wall and said she would write to the transplant team in Manchester." he says. "I don't know what she wrote but I got a phone call from them asking me to go in.
"When the surgeon saw me he said he couldn't believe I was still alive as I had been so ill," adds Ivan.
He was brought in for assessment again and informed that finally he been placed on the list.
Ivan was told to keep a hospital bag packed at all times and has been given a bleeper so the team can contact him if they are unable to reach him on his landline or mobile phone.
The fact that he is still alive, Ann puts down to Ivan's sheer determination.
"He refuses to believe that he will not survive this," she says. "He is determined he is going back to work."
l New Start Charity was set up at Wythenshawe Hospital as a support organisation in 1986 to fund the first transplants in the North West of England, and to assist in funding the development of a transplant centre for heart and lung transplantation. For information or to send a cash gift, write to New Start Charity, The Transplant Unit, Wythenshawe Hospital, Southmoor Road, Wythenshawe, Manchester, M23 9LT, or ring 0161 9452166.
12 January 2007
"'I'm just waiting for the phone to ring'"
Quote By : Catherine Thomas
EVERY time the phone rings
Ivan Flavell wonders if this is the call which will save his life.
Ivan is waiting for a transplant after chronic emphysema has rendered his lungs virtually useless.
The 49-year-old father-of-four, of Duke Street, Elland, has to crawl on all fours to get upstairs to his bedroom and has to stop half-way up to rest. He has oxygen piped into every room in the house, apart from the kitchen, to help him breathe properly and he requires nasal oxygen every night while he is asleep.
Ivan, who also has coronary heart disease, is one of more than 8,000 people in the UK waiting for an organ transplant. He is also painfully aware of the fact that he could become one of the 400 people who die in the UK every year while they wait for an organ to become available.
According to UK Transplant, which manages the National Transplant Database, there is currently a critical shortage of organs, and the gap between the number of organs donated and the number of people waiting for a transplant is increasing.
Ivan, who was placed on the transplant list last October, and his wife Ann know they could have a long wait ahead of them – adults wait an average of 394 days for a lung to become available.
In the meantime, Ann continues to be his full-time carer and the couple have adjusted their lives to try to get along the best they can.
"It is very sad that someone has to die so that I can live, but a lung transplant will give me my life back," says Ivan.
"I want to go back to work, but at the moment I can't even put a nail in the door without being out of breath. I'm 49 but have the body of a 65-year-old."
Ivan says the organ shortage is due to a lack of awareness about the donor register.
"But some people don't consider it because they think nothing will happen to them," he says. "Some people say they will do it and then never get around to it. I would urge anybody who has thought about being a donor to join the register."
Ivan first noticed his health wasn't as it should be when he joined the Army's Royal Tank Regiment in 1974 at just 17 years old.
"I only just got through my basic training," he recalls. "I remember looking at the others who had shot off in front of me and thinking I must be really unfit. I had the corporal behind me shouting that this was my last chance and I literally just scraped through."
But it wasn't until seven years later in August, 1981 that Ivan ended up in hospital.
"I was working as a wagon driver at the time," he says. "I'd been up early delivering great sacks of potatoes to Bradford Royal Infirmary and came home with the intention of going back to bed."
Ann came to see what he was up to in the bathroom and found him leaning against the sink.
"He said his shoulder blade was really hurting him and thought he had pulled a muscle lugging the big sacks that morning," she says. "He ended up laying on the floor and then got to the point where he couldn't exhale air."
Ann called an ambulance and Ivan was taken back to the hospital where he had been delivering that morning. He was diagnosed with a pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and following treatment, returned home. But four months later the same thing happened.
"I was treated again and then returned home and carried on with life," explains Ivan, who worked at the former Firth Carpets, Bailiff Bridge, for 11 years. "Then, some time in the 1980s I started suffering really badly with indigestion and had it for years. It got worse and worse to the point that soon I couldn't keep any food down at all."
Ivan was diagnosed with an acid reflux problem, and in 1997 was admitted for surgery to correct the problem at Bradford Royal Infirmary. During his recovery he recalls one of the doctors recognising him as the patient with the 'athlete's lungs'. Ivan, not realising the doctor was being sarcastic, was pleased with this description as Ann was forever making fun of him for being unfit and out of breath a lot of the time. But Ivan was soon to realise just exactly what that doctor had meant.
He had started working as a forklift truck driver for the former Kosset Carpets at Brookfoot.
"I always seemed to be out of breath," he explains. "And whenever I tried to pull myself into the truck I was getting a sharp pain in my shoulder blade."
When Ivan returned to the hospital for a post-operative check-up for his surgery, he mentioned the troubles he had been having to the doctor.
"He just went quiet and started leafing through my notes," he says. "And then he said I would be getting those symptoms because during the surgery they had noticed my lungs were riddled with emphysema and they had removed part of my left lung."
Ivan and Ann were flabbergasted; no-one had mentioned this to them before, and they urged the doctor to check they were the right notes.
"But he said they were my notes and I should go back to my doctor," says Ivan.
He returned to his GP who referred him to the Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax.
"I was given nebulisers and inhalers and told there was nothing else they could do for me, and to go home and live with it," he recalls. "But I really wasn't happy with that, I wasn't going to just lie down and accept it. I said I wanted to go back to see the surgeon who had operated on me.
"He was shocked when he saw me again because he thought I would be dead," laughs Ivan. "He sent me on a pulmonary rehabilitation course to show me how to breathe differently and strengthen what little lung capacity I had. I went on the course but I couldn't breathe like I was being told to and kept passing out, so I wasn't allowed back; they barred me."
Ivan is laughing as he tells me this story, despite the seriousness of his condition.
"I have to laugh about it, otherwise I would just cry," he says. "Me and Ann enjoy joking about, it's the only way we can cope with it."
When Ivan returned to see the consultant in 1999 he was told he would be dead within two years if he did not have a lung transplant and was transferred to Wythenshawe Hospital, a centre of excellence in Manchester.
At the start of the new millennium, tests were carried out to determine Ivan's suitability as a candidate for transplant. He was told that he was 'too well' for the transplant.
"You have to meet a certain criteria to qualify," explains Ivan. "The aim is to give me a better quality of life. At the time I was well enough to live for a few years, but if I had the operation I had a 50 per cent chance of dying on the table, so they decided not to go ahead."
Ivan continued seeing his GP and his condition was constantly monitored.
"I was starting to feel terrible," he says. "I really felt like I was going down the pan. I was getting to the point where I could do less and less and seemed to be constantly laid on the sofa with my oxygen because I couldn't do anything else."
Ivan was once again referred back to Bradford who referred him on to Manchester again.
During this time Ivan was also suffering from seizures (thought to have been brought on by a reaction to medication he was taking at the time).
In August 2005 he went back to Manchester for reassessment of his suitability for transplant surgery and was told the transplant team would meet up and discuss his case. Just before Christmas that year he was once again told he was not suitable, but this time it was because he was too ill.
"I went back to see my GP and she went up the wall and said she would write to the transplant team in Manchester." he says. "I don't know what she wrote but I got a phone call from them asking me to go in.
"When the surgeon saw me he said he couldn't believe I was still alive as I had been so ill," adds Ivan.
He was brought in for assessment again and informed that finally he been placed on the list.
Ivan was told to keep a hospital bag packed at all times and has been given a bleeper so the team can contact him if they are unable to reach him on his landline or mobile phone.
The fact that he is still alive, Ann puts down to Ivan's sheer determination.
"He refuses to believe that he will not survive this," she says. "He is determined he is going back to work."
l New Start Charity was set up at Wythenshawe Hospital as a support organisation in 1986 to fund the first transplants in the North West of England, and to assist in funding the development of a transplant centre for heart and lung transplantation. For information or to send a cash gift, write to New Start Charity, The Transplant Unit, Wythenshawe Hospital, Southmoor Road, Wythenshawe, Manchester, M23 9LT, or ring 0161 9452166.
12 January 2007
"'I'm just waiting for the phone to ring'"
Quote By : Catherine Thomas