Home again after a big week

It is amazing how fragile we transplantees can be. A small mistake with medication post hip replacement, and suddenly my body starts the lung rejection process. Quick action by the wonderful transplant team at Prince Charles Hospital and here I am home again on the way back to normal. It'll take a few days still but vital statistics look good.

It was an eventful week with Friday being the tenth anniversary of the Prince Charles Hospital Queensland Lung Transplant Unit. As I was now an inpatient, I joined the celebrations at the hospital with a morning tea attended by over 100 people including present and past members of the Queensland transplant unit as well as a large number of transplantees and their families. The State Minister for Health, the Honorable Mr Stephen Robertson, also attended and I think he was both surprised and impressed with the order of events and the camaraderie that exists between medical staff and patients. It is very much a big family.

I was honored to be asked to make the presentation of the gift from transplantees and from some of their families whose donations were gratefully acknowledged. In all some $3,000 was raised, an amazing result considering there are only some 60 - 70 transplantees still living since transplants began in Queensland (out of about 110 operations). This should cover both the cost of the fountain and installation. Sincere thanks to Eleanor Kerr, social worker at Prince Charles, fellow transplantees Glenda Murray and Phil Griffiths as well as my wife Janyne and children, Paul and Jacqui, without whom this would not have happened.

Here we have two of the transplant team members, Dr. Fiona Kermeen (left) and Dr Peter Hopkins, both of whom look after me so well, accepting a token of the gift to come. It has a replica of a plaque on the left hand side and a photo of the water fountain on the right. Unfortunately the quality of the photos isn't great but I am sure you get the picture.

Guess who? Not bad for a guy with a crook hip and mild lung rejection ????


The plaque says, "Celebrating The Tenth Anniversary of The Prince Charles Hospital Queensland Lung Transplant Unit Donated with Gratitude by Transplant Recipients, Families and Friends, 22.09.2006".

In my presentation I made reference to my thoughts of creating a more formal group or association made up of existing and prospective lung transplantees and maybe their families and friends with a proper committee and better organisation so that future events of this nature can be more efficiently managed. There is no pre-determined agenda here as this will evolve with time and consensus but some broad aims could be to provide moral and, if possible and appropriate, financial support to past and prospective transplantees and their immediate families, raise funds to assist the transplant team in whatever way is deemed appropriate, create greater awareness of the benefits of being an organ donor, organise some fun tours and events etc (after all, life after transplant should be fun), and generally keep members informed about how to get the best out of their new lives.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson was so impressed by this idea that he approached me after formalities and stated that, if we can put this concept together, he would pledge up to $3,000 in funding, (based on a dollar for every dollar raised for the gift to the transplant team). This level of support is very gratefully appreciated and I will be writing to his office this week accepting his conditional offer on behalf of the transplant recipients and committing to report on progress.

Over the next few days I will be speaking to various hospital staff to gauge their thoughts and ideas as well as to find out what similar groups of this nature already exist. After all, we need to be mindful that we don't re-invent the wheel. We will also get a feedback form to as many current and prospective transplantees as possible to gauge levels of interest, organise some meetings, seek nominations for a committee, draft a mission statement and develop a constitution. If anyone out there has any ideas or comments in this regard, I would welcome them. We want this to be fun and not too formal but at the same time it may pay us to have the association registered as a charity if we're going to look at fund raising down the track so we need some formality involved.

Keep watching this blog site for details. Thanks again in my absence to my son Paul who does a far better job of all this than I do.