Bethany

Some of you may recognise the face of little Bethany. She has just featured in Tesco magazine as the face of their organ donation campaign - click here to read the article. She's only 5 and up until 20 days ago needed a liver transplant to save her life.

20 days ago Bethany had the call her family had waiting for. She had already been through two false alarms but this time the operation went ahead.

As of 29th January 316 people in the UK were waiting for a liver transplant. 21 of those were children.

The two pictures show Bethany before transplant (left) and just 9 days after (above). She is now home and enjoying the snow with her sister.

Somewhere a family said yes to organ donation and made this amazing transformation possible. They made it possible for one little girl to play in the snow with her sister.

Please talk about Bethany's story so that we can give all those currently on the list for transplant the hope of playing in the snow.

BATTLEFRONT

The amazing Holly is still working on the Battlefront campaign. This slideshow says it all - check out the web page and register your support.

http://battlefront.co.uk/campaign/the-gift-of-life/

William Gets His Call!!!

Last week little William (see below) had the call he had been waiting for. A donor had been found and his transplant took place just a week ago. The little lad is doing well and for the first time in three years able to take fluids by mouth. How amazing is that!

He's still a long way to go but these pictures show just he is doing amazingly well - out of ITU in just 24 hours.

Please send your thoughts and prayers to William and mum Sarah via her blog http://sarahmilne.blogspot.com/

Sue and Nigel Burton

Our amazing trustees Sue and Nigel allowed The Guardian to follow their meeting with their son's liver recipient. This is their story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2008/nov/18/organ-donation

The Great Opt Out Debate

Yesterday saw the release of the Organ Donation Task Force report on presumed consent. And what a debate it has caused. The Network were priviliged to sit on the Clinical Working Group of the Task Force that debated the issue and argued the case for not moving to opt out.

You can read our full statement and the report on our main website.

The one good thing to come out of yesterday is that at least ithas encourage debate again and put organ donation on the news - lets hope that it encourages people to discuss organ donation and join the register or let their family know their wishes.
The gift of life is an amazing gift to be given - lets carry on working to make sure every family who is in a position to donate are given that option.

William

This is William. He is four years old. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine.

William needs a samll bowel transplant as soon as possible.

Because 'intestines' are not listed on the donor card or register and intestinal transplantation does not currently have widespread awareness, even among medical staff, small bowel is often not retrieved. On average, there are 25 children donating organs each year. The current list for transplants involving intestines (including combined with liver) is less than half that. Intestines are being left behind when other organs are retrieved. If all 25 donors gave all their organs, all children on the list for isolated bowel could receive their transplant. In reality, children are dying on the list because of lack of awareness.

The work that we do is to help people like William. By talking about organ donation and working to promote donation hopefully the greater the chance William will get the transplant he needs.

William is dependent on TPN, a feed that goes straight to his bloodstream through a drip 22 hours a day. Unfortunately,William is now experiencing frequent and life threatening infections in his TPN line due to his intestines leaking into his blood stream. William has been in hospital this time for over six weeks and it doesn't look as though he will be well enough to go home until he has his transplant.

Please talk about small bowel donation when you talk about organ donation and increase awareness of this area of transplantation.

Please send him and his family a message at http://sarahmilne.blogspot.com/ and keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Holly's Wait is Over!

I was lucky enough to meet the lovely Holly (see post below) and her parents last week at an organ donation study day in Manchester. A week later and she has received the gift of a new kidney! She is already out of high dependency and doing well. The kidney however is being very stubborn and not yet working although all the signs are good. So please send her your prayers and positive vibes!