Paul, Alison, Lucy and Tom

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Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) share how they registered & discussed organ donation.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) share how they registered & discussed organ donation.

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Paul: Don’t think we ever discussed it really. And Ali mentioned that the thing about the driving, driving licenses, I’m pretty sure that there is a, there’s something on the driving license that says you now have to opt out rather than opt in.

Tom: Yeah.

Alison: Wasn’t that

Lucy: And, and no, we had. When we, when we got our driving licenses, you had to tick whether or not you would, and again, I feel like for all of us, it was just a Why wouldn’t you? Yeah. Well I think so I, I think it would’ve been a fleeting conversation in passing, like, well, of course I’ve ticked the box, but it wasn’t something we sat down and spoke about.

Alison: permission to speak. Growing up with, because they, all, three of them, and I have an inherited blood disorder, which means, well we’ve got, we’ve got it so it, it cytosis and it, it affects your blood. So we were all, they were in and outta hospitals when they were little, so had a lot to do with that. And Tom had leukemia when he was 10 or 11. So he needed a bone marrow transplant, which Anna gave him. So that’s a transplant in its own Right. So we, they’ve grown up around that and we’ve always had that and we both, we both work in the pharmaceutical industry and I worked in hospital. So really for us it’s a little bit ingrained. So we, we just did it and when, and you know, when they got their driving license, they just did it. So

Tom: it Wasn’t even a decision really. It was just something that was going to happen.

Alison: You just through that, that’s what we would, we would do. And if anything ever happened, that’s what we would do. I mean, I get a little bit cheesed off because we can’t give blood because of our inherited blood disorder. We can’t give blood and it, so we’re that sort of family anyway.

Paul: Yeah. And, and as Ali touched on, I mean the fact that, that Anna had saved Tom’s life basically made, just reinforced the fact that, you know, we’ve got living proof of the importance, the value that whatever word you want to use of, of transplantation. So why would we not do it?

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss the importance of discussing organ donation.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss the importance of discussing organ donation.

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Paul: I think, and it is, it is the extended family as well, Leah, the, you know, because the individual can sign up and say, yes, I’m happy to donate my liver.

By the time that situation comes, they’re out of it. Yeah. You know, so it is the support of the extended family and what, whatever the internal family conversations have been, but they need to understand how passionate or how keen the individual was on doing that and to support that, because that’s where it falls down as, as you said right at the start, that families, you know, oh, she may have wanted to do it, but you know, we don’t want to lose any of her.

So it’s not an easy, not an easy problem to solve because it will be different for each family as well. There isn’t a one size fits all, I presume consent can also be taken as, oh, you are making our decision for us.

You know, even though it’s a way of trying to ease, you know, and get more organs.

If, if people feel they’re been dictated to, then their natural reaction is, well, no, no, it’s not up to you to decide.
It’s up to us. And because you’ve decided yes, we’ll decide. No. So there is that sort of thing that goes on.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) talk about the difficult time leading up to retrieval.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) talk about the difficult time leading up to retrieval.

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Lucy: We were also given the opportunity and one of the team came to speak to us. I think quite early on, on the Wednesday, to ask if we wanted to create a playlist that they would play when Annie was in surgery. So if we’d have got to the point where there were organs that were being donated, you know, obviously it’s not a surgery, like a regular surgery is. So we were, Tom and I were tasked with curating the playlist. Now Anna had a very eclectic taste in music.

And what happens when you’re experiencing a weird grief like that is every single idea that, you know, falls out of your brain. And Tom and I are like scrambling around trying to think after like the first, after the, like obvious four we are like, what songs would she want on this playlist?

But knowing it was things like that, knowing that, like mom said, it wouldn’t be a kind of a cold clinical experience, that the doctors that would’ve been, you know, kind of taken her organs would’ve kind of got a piece of Annie kind of in there and, and kind of almost got to know who she was by this god awful playlist that we put together, you know, from like Meatloaf to McFly to Westlife to, you know, Blondie, Bon Jovi to Bon Jovi, um, to Harry Styles.

So like, things like that are weirdly comforting in times of the unknown and great sadness.

And like mom says, like that clinical environment, of course it, you know, it is never nice to, to think about the person you love in any situation where they’re, you know, no longer here.

But knowing that you are, you have the opportunity to give somebody else a gift, but also at that time that your loved one has been thought about.

And, yeah, just kind of cared for, be it through a playlist, be it through the surgeon coming to speak to you or whatever it might be.

All those little things add up to make the memory of that time not as awful as it could be, I think.

And so I think, you know, for families who are hesitant to, to do it or unsure things, like knowing that you have a team that check in on you hourly knowing that you can, you know, put together a playlist for your loved one that you then have and you can listen to it or you cannot listen to it.

But knowing that they have that on their last little journey, you know, when they’re kind of, you know, giving people the gift of life because that’s effectively what you are doing.

If you are donating organs, you are allowing somebody else to carry on living, be it for a short amount of time. And there will be people who, who get those organs who have been waiting for months or years, and you’ve got mums and dads and sisters and brothers, you know, and, and the individual themselves who are holding on for that phone call.

And if you can be the person that makes that phone call and your experience can be made easier by little things like a playlist, that goes a very long way.

So I think, you know, obviously we don’t look back on that time with fond memories, but they’re softened by things like knowing that the, the surgeon would have to listen to Bonjovi living on a prayer while, you know, while, while removing, while removing her heart, for example.

Alison: I think, I think what, what is, what is what is hard about when you are sitting in intensive care next to somebody on a life support machine and they are warm to touch and they are breathing and their heart’s beating, and you can see all that on the monitors because they obviously have to keep them optimum and they do.

Because you’ve got saline going, you’ve got all these drips, all these wires for sound.

So it’s very hard to think that actually the person lying there isn’t there because they are there, but, well, it is, they’re not there.

But it, it, it is very hard as a mother, it’s quite hard to see your daughter lying there. And you think that, yeah. I mean, I remember her, thinking, oh, she’s, she’s moved, her hand’s moved, but it was just, it was by Paul holding her hand.

But if you give, you get that and you just think, well, maybe if it is, maybe she can breathe on her own. Maybe they can do that.

Paul: And she did play games with this Leah because it, when we left her for the last time, our WhatsApp group is called, where Are My Keys? Because we all had a little lie down with Anna to say goodbye. Tom laid down with her, got up, and we got to the door outta intensive care and he said, where are my keys? And they were wrapped up in Anna’s gown.

Alison: She was lying on them Yeah.

Lucy: In her pajamas. Yeah.

Paul: And we struggle to understand how they could have got out of his pocket under Anna, but there’s only one Well, we know, we know how it happened.

Alison: Yeah. It’s just a way of saying, But it’s, it’s just remember, I don’t think people realise that as soon as you switch that machine off, it’s, it’s not hours, it’s not minutes. It, it’s seconds. And I don’t think, and that, that’s, that’s what people, nobody wants to see that. And I can remember thinking that I didn’t want this lot to see Anna like that because I knew that it wouldn’t take very long before she really didn’t look like Anna anymore. After this.

But they were absolutely brilliant.

Lucy: She did not look Like Anna for a couple of days. Mom.

Alison: They were nurses on the ward and the transplant scene were fantastic.

And afterwards, and it was, and made it very, I don’t know, very peaceful.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss Annie’s journey to ITU & organ donation.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss Annie’s journey to ITU & organ donation.

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Lucy: I am Lucy and I am Annie’s sister. We lost Annie two and a bit years ago.

Paul: Three years. Three years ago.

Lucy: Three years ago. And organ donation was something that we discussed around the time that we lost her.

Paul: Yeah. I’m Paul. I’m Annie's dad. And, well there’s not more to, not a lot more to say about that actually.  And I’m Lucy’s dad and Tom’s dad as well, we think to avoid confusion.

Alison: I’m Alison. And I’m Annie’s mum. Lucy’s mum.Tom’s mum, Paul’s wife.

Tom: And I’m Tom. I’m, Lucy’s brother, Annie’s brother, Paul’s son and, Ali’s son as well.

Paul: It’s great that, that all hang together. Annie is, still, was Lucy’s twin sister. Both born on the Queen’s birthday in 1987.

Alison: Seven weeks premature,

Paul: Seven weeks premature. And obviously Tom, Tom was Annie’s is Annie’s brother. Three years younger.

Tom: Yeah. They stopped because he got perfection.

Paul: Yeah. So, Annie and Lucy, we, we didn’t, we never regarded them as a unit because we are always very conscious that twins are treated as a single unit. And we, we did everything we could to make sure they were guarded as separate people, which is what they were. Even to the extent of very rarely dressing them the same. Although we’ve got dozens of pictures of where they appear to be dressed the same. I dunno how that happened. So, so yeah, it, you know, she was a lovely individual and,

Tom: I think, I think she made sure that she wasn’t anything like Lucy as well. So they made sure they were both completely separate from each other.

Alison: They were, they were completely, were children.

Paul:Completely different. Yeah, absolutely.

Alison: Chalk and cheese. Completely chalk and cheese. And yet academically they were on a level, but we put them through school, nursery, infant school, junior school, everything. They went, they were in separate classes for everything to the point that when they did their GCSE, some of the teachers didn’t even know they were related, let alone that they were twins. So we did a good job on that score. Yeah. But they had, they had completely separate friends, but still very similar.

Lucy: Yeah, I think as well,

Alison: Annie had a much more, I dunno, I don’t know what the word is,

Tom: artistic view on life And the sense of humour that Lucy, sometimes

Lucy: I have a sense of humour. It was just very, that’s different.

Tom: It’s just not funny.

Lucy: She was, she, her humour was very unique. Yeah, she was, uh, I think we, we became more similar as we got older. Had more in common, had like separate friendship groups, but,

Tom: you’re all friends.

Lucy: Friends in friends in common as well. We would spend, obviously as you get older, you do just find your way together more, I think as you become adults as opposed to kind of grotty, hormone filled teenagers that, you know, fall out. And she was incredibly messy, incredibly disorganised. Like not even in an endearing way, like in a, like you want to throttle it kind of way. So I think as growing up, that was quite frustrating until we got separate rooms, then it wasn’t so much of a problem. But yeah, definitely as we got older, yeah. Yeah, we had to extend the house so we didn’t kill each other. But yeah, as we got older we definitely had that kind of a friendship as well as, just being sisters, I suppose.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) talk about brain death testing offer & declines.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) talk about brain death testing offer & declines.

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Paul: On reflection, you always sort of look back over these things that at that huge meeting with 20 odd people there, the transplantation team were there.

So they, they were quite open about the fact that if this goes the way it’s inevitably going to go, then, you know, and they were checking that what we’d said earlier on is still what we wanted to do.

So that conversation wasn’t just relying on what we’d said however long ago it was, is this still what you want to do?

Because clearly the way of getting places to accept transplantation has changed the fact that Anna had, um, you know, an infection driven problem was obviously going to be causing difficulties because then you have to explain to the people that you’re trying to give the organs to what the thing is, which is why they ended up with nobody being willing or able to take any of Annie’s organs because nobody knew what the infection was that was causing the encephalitis, whether it was bacterial, whether it was viral or whatever it was.

Because they couldn’t do a lumbar puncture, which is what they wanted to do to start with, but for whatever reason.

So they weren’t able to identify the infection. So of course nobody would take an organ, which potentially is harboring a, a, a latent infection.

Lucy: But the, the process up to that point, so on the, we had the big meeting with everybody on the Tuesday, and then on the Wednesday they did the confirmation brainstem tests.

Alison: But Tuesday Had transplant,

Paul: let her finish.

Lucy: So, so on the Wednesday they’d done, they did the brainstem tests, and then that was about half past 11 where the confirmation, was given that her, that her brainstem was no longer functioning.

And then from that point on, obviously it, it was then we were then in lots of discussion with the transplant team.

They were based, um, in a room on the, in the ICU. And they started doing their work and we were able to sit with Annie for that whole time.

And basically we’re kind of given, you know, hourly or a couple of hourly updates on, because it goes out to the centers, doesn’t it? But it, what we were, you know what? We weren’t left sitting there for hours and hours and hours. It was, this is the, you know, we were asked which organs we would want to donate. And then we were kind of, we were updated the whole time.

So like dad says, unfortunately nobody would, nobody was able to take her organs in the end. But it, they kind of almost went through every organ and every place. And the hospital were amazing and we kind of, we, we were there till about kind of one or two in the morning in the end when the last, the last kind of, um, no thank you, came through.

But at no point were we left for more than a couple of hours before we got another update.

So in terms of the transplant team that we experienced, it wasn’t a case of Right, we’re gonna disappear off and we’ll see you in a day. There was always somebody updating us.

Yeah, there was always somebody keeping us in the loop.

They were kind of really apologetic every time a no came back, even though it was completely understandable why a no came back.

So from that point of view, I think for, for families who are going to be possibly going through that experience, I think that the teams that we, that we kind of had experience of, um, you know, were really supportive, were really kind, EE every point they kept asking, are you sure this is what you want to do?

Do you want to continue? Um, you know, we can stop now if this is too much. So it wasn’t a case of you’ve said yes and now we’re gonna plow on and make you feel uncomfortable.

It was every opportunity we were checked in with to see is this still your choices is still what you want to do?

Are you still happy to continue?

And I think knowing that that happens is really important because the fact that you can kind of withdraw your consent at any time, should you feel like it’s too much, or should you feel that actually it’s not what you would like to do,

Alison: They also didn’t make us feel like it was a clinical procedure either, did they?

They were very, they were very human and we didn’t feel like you were in a clinic, donating. It wasn’t like that. It didn’t, it didn’t feel that at all.

Paul: And whether it’s speak to, to Macclesfield or whether it’s endemic in all the hospitals, but the, the clear partnership between the intensive care staff, doctors, nurses, support staff, and the, I pre presume it was the MVTS, you know, was, it was seamless, so it wasn’t as though they bus these people in that there clearly is a partnership for those two separate groups of people.

Mm-hmm. So, which, which just makes it so much easier for the family.

Alison: Yeah. I, I think what people, what was explained to us, what people don’t realize is that Annie could have gone down to theatre and had whatever donated organs were going to be removed, and then she’d have come back to the intensive care unit and we, we could have sat with her again.

So, you know, there was, there was no, she goes down to theatre and you’ll never see her again. The next time you see her will be at, at the undertakers or wherever we could have, we could have sat with her. There was no, there was no push to do that.

They were, yes, very, very professional, but very, very human and yeah, it made us feel part of a family really.

Paul: By the way, this is

Alison: this is Anna, this is Anna’s cat. He knows we're talking.

Tom: Anna's panther

Paul: He shows up.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss why people decline.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss why people decline.

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Paul: I think, I think it’s, it’s the intactness Yeah. Of, of the person. Because when we, when, when I, when I had my first conversation with the transfusion, the transplant people, you know, they said, are you happy for it to happen? And, and I said, yes, except for our eyes.

Yeah. Because they’re special.

Yeah. So, You know, just to extend that principle, I think there, there will be families, there’ll be people who perhaps didn’t have the support, the care, the, the love that we got, presented with this situation.

And the last thing they, they’re, they’re thinking about or want to happen is that part of their loved one who, who they, they’re losing will be taken away.

That’s what they’re thinking of. Not the benefit to the other people that Lucy pointed out. So I, and I don’t know how you get around that, other than the way it’s approached.

The fact that we were having the continual discussion all the time Anna was ill, and in some ways we were fortunate in that we have three days to work through that.

There’ll be people who don’t have that time.

So it’s very immediate. The questions will be asked.

And you’re getting used to the fact that, you know, your loved one is, is not gonna be here.

You know, and we were on a slope that went like that. We didn’t go down like that.

So there’ll be all sorts of factors. And there’ll be people that it will be impossible to persuade because it, you know, of the way they feel.

So I mean, from my perspective, all I would say is that what we experienced made it so much easier. You know, however you look at that.

Alison: I can, I can also say, and this is, this is a very honest, that when, when nobody wanted any of Anna’s organs because of the infection risk, we were happy.

A little bit of me was relieved. Yeah.

Because absolutely it meant that I got all of her.

Yeah. But I, but I still would’ve done it.

If, if he could have done, I’d have,

I’d have, I’d have done it. But yeah.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) introduce Annie and the family.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) introduce Annie and the family.

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Lucy: I am Lucy and I am Annie’s sister. We lost Annie two and a bit years ago.

Paul: Three years. Three years ago.

Lucy: Three years ago. And organ donation was something that we discussed around the time that we lost her.

Paul: Yeah. I’m Paul. I’m Annie's dad. And, well there’s not more to, not a lot more to say about that actually.  And I’m Lucy’s dad and Tom’s dad as well, we think to avoid confusion.

Alison: I’m Alison. And I’m Annie’s mum. Lucy’s mum.Tom’s mum, Paul’s wife.

Tom: And I’m Tom. I’m, Lucy’s brother, Annie’s brother, Paul’s son and, Ali’s son as well.

Paul: It’s great that, that all hang together. Annie is, still, was Lucy’s twin sister. Both born on the Queen’s birthday in 1987.

Alison: Seven weeks premature,

Paul: Seven weeks premature. And obviously Tom, Tom was Annie’s is Annie’s brother. Three years younger.

Tom: Yeah. They stopped because he got perfection.

Paul: Yeah. So, Annie and Lucy, we, we didn’t, we never regarded them as a unit because we are always very conscious that twins are treated as a single unit. And we, we did everything we could to make sure they were guarded as separate people, which is what they were. Even to the extent of very rarely dressing them the same. Although we’ve got dozens of pictures of where they appear to be dressed the same. I dunno how that happened. So, so yeah, it, you know, she was a lovely individual and,

Tom: I think, I think she made sure that she wasn’t anything like Lucy as well. So they made sure they were both completely separate from each other.

Alison: They were, they were completely, were children.

Paul:Completely different. Yeah, absolutely.

Alison: Chalk and cheese. Completely chalk and cheese. And yet academically they were on a level, but we put them through school, nursery, infant school, junior school, everything. They went, they were in separate classes for everything to the point that when they did their GCSE, some of the teachers didn’t even know they were related, let alone that they were twins. So we did a good job on that score. Yeah. But they had, they had completely separate friends, but still very similar.

Lucy: Yeah, I think as well,

Alison: Annie had a much more, I dunno, I don’t know what the word is,

Tom: artistic view on life And the sense of humour that Lucy, sometimes

Lucy: I have a sense of humour. It was just very, that’s different.

Tom: It’s just not funny.

Lucy: She was, she, her humour was very unique. Yeah, she was, uh, I think we, we became more similar as we got older. Had more in common, had like separate friendship groups, but,

Tom: you’re all friends.

Lucy: Friends in friends in common as well. We would spend, obviously as you get older, you do just find your way together more, I think as you become adults as opposed to kind of grotty, hormone filled teenagers that, you know, fall out. And she was incredibly messy, incredibly disorganised. Like not even in an endearing way, like in a, like you want to throttle it kind of way. So I think as growing up, that was quite frustrating until we got separate rooms, then it wasn’t so much of a problem. But yeah, definitely as we got older, yeah. Yeah, we had to extend the house so we didn’t kill each other. But yeah, as we got older we definitely had that kind of a friendship as well as, just being sisters, I suppose.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss the benefits of organ donation.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom (brother) discuss the benefits of organ donation.

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Alison: If, if somebody sounds, if somebody famous died or somebody famous was on life support and, and their family went on and said, we are donating a bit like any, you know, like sort of the king going on about these prostate cancer and, and how there was an upsurge in people taking up the test and that would, that would happen.

I think, I think high Profile people,

Lucy: I, I don’t think it even necessarily needs to be high profile people. I think it, I think you need to hear the stories of the people who’ve received organs.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think so. I have an ex-colleague who daughter unfortunately died a year or so ago and she was only 18 and they were able to donate her organs and they donated her womb.

And if the lady who has received her womb is able to carry a child to, I think it’s 35 weeks or more, and then, you know, to full term, they get notified and they will get notified that their daughter’s womb has carried somebody else’s child.

And I think it, it’s things like that. It’s, it’s, it’s making it, it’s making it real and it’s, and it’s putting those stories in your mind.

So as sad as it is, as awful as it is, as distressing and traumatic as it is, if, if you’ve just seen one person that says, I was able to watch my son graduate because someone donated his heart.

I was able to walk my daughter down the aisle because I’ve got somebody’s lungs.

I was able to have a baby because somebody was brave enough and wonderful enough to donate their daughter’s womb to me.

Like they’re, they’re the stories, you know? I agree.

Like they’re, they’re the stories that, that make you go, we would want that if it, if the shoe was on the other foot, we would want the heart, we would want the womb, we would want the, the lungs.

So I think the, the thing that gets you and the thing that always encourages people is the humanity in it.

It’s the, it’s the real life stories.

So hearing our story of being a family who wanted to donate organs and went through that process is one thing, but it’s still harrowing.

It’s still really sad.

I think you need the joy and the hope of the people who’ve received the organs Yeah.

In order to encourage people to do it. Yeah.

I think, I think that above all else makes you go, oh, okay, maybe we can, and you might not donate all our organs, but if you donate one or two or, or whatever it is, or if it just starts those conversations, oh, I saw this, you know, make a TikTok, make a, I dunno, these, the kids don make a dance.

I dunno. But I think, I think making, making it human, because it, that’s what it’s about.

It’s about people living. Yeah.

Paul: And We in a fortunate position with Tom to be able to do that.

So when, when Anna’s gift to Tom worked and cured him and gave him life, basically, we were able to publicize that in, in the local press and, and we were interviewed and, uh, you know, it, so we’ve seen the other side of it, if you like.

And to be able to do that, who knows what impact it’s had.

But certainly the British Leukemia Fund or whatever it’s called at the time, I think it’s changed, its, its title now.

You know, they came and talked to us and presumably they publicized it as well

Lucy: Then. But like our, our three cousins because obviously we can’t donate bone marrow to other people that aren’t family because it creates dodgy blood.

But our three cousins then put themselves on the anti, Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Register, and two of them have kind of been called to and kind of got you, like got down, got down to the final two when it comes to, to donating.

So like that’s just three people that we know and two outta three of them have, you know, have, have kind of, have got quite close to, to being in a situation where they might donate.

So it is, it’s that, it’s it’s word of mouth, it’s people, of put in put in the faces Yeah.

To the need, I think. Because it’s really easy to forget it and not discuss it.

And it only takes an advert, you know, on during, gonna age myself.

Now the X factor on a Saturday, you know, like, but, but if you’re all sat round, if you’re all watching it and an advert comes on with a beautiful little girl who’s received a heart or a family that have been able to, you know,nto stay together because somebody’s got a, got a new liver and then it starts that conversation and everybody sits around and goes, oh, I donate my organs.

Oh, I donate my organs. And you’ve had that conversation and then God forbid, you then end up being that family like us sat in ICU, you go, well actually, do you remember she was really passionate about doing that?

And yes, okay, it might not go the whole, you know, the whole way, but the discussion started by, you know, by people connecting with people.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom share Tom’s story who is a recipient.

Paul (dad), Alison (Mum), Lucy (Sister) and Tom share Tom’s story who is a recipient.

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Lucy: But the other, we got, we got some gold hearts for our troubles.

Alison: Oh yeah, we did. We still got them. Even though we didn’t, even though we couldn’t, we got the gold hearts.

Yeah. Yeah. That, that was nice. We that I think that that got to us all didn’t it when we got those.

Paul: and not, I don’t wanna put Tom on the spot, but as

Lucy: put him on the spot, do it.

Tom: Well that’s fine.

Paul: As somebody who, who has been the recipient of a transplant, you know, there, there’s an opportunity, you know, to to, to say what difference it’s made to him, you know?

Lucy: Yeah. Come on, Tom. Speak up

Tom: Years ago. Yeah.

Alison: Yeah. But you wouldn’t have asked that 22 years have you not having a transplant, so. Yeah.

Tom: But yeah, it’s obviously prolonged my life a bit longer than it should have been, so That’s fine. I, yeah.

Paul: Hopefully a lot longer.

Tom: Well, Yeah, a lot. So, but I, yeah, I’ve not had much to say on it really?

Paul: Because with, with the leukemia, I’m sure it’s not unique to Tom that transplant is a last resort.

The medication had been tried, which is, you know, normally for whatever percentage of people does the trick.

And then something else was tried and it got to the stage where unless we can find a bone marrow donor, then it’s not looking too help. Hopeful.

Tom: Not looked too far though.

Alison: But the difference, the difference so far, the difference, the difference is with bone marrow and now it’s a stem, it’s a stem cell transplant, not so they don’t have to do the horrible drilling into your hips and getting the bone marrow out and all that is that you are living and the person who is donating continues to live.

So it’s a slightly different concept than seeing somebody in ICU that is going to donate their organs and not come out of it because the person who’s donated walks away.

Yeah. So it’s a little bit of a different concept. Yeah.

Paul: But principle,

Lucy: it starts and it starts a conversation, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Alison: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.