Liver transplant veteran recalls her gift of life

03 March 2006

By NIKKI MACDONALDTracy Holmes celebrated a miracle on her 30th birthday.

"My parents live in awe every day, to see me doing the things I do. When I had my 30th birthday party, that was amazing.

"For them to see their daughter reach 30, who was not supposed to live past two."

Hamilton-based Miss Holmes is New Zealand's longest-surviving liver transplant patient and will celebrate in October the 20th anniversary of her second chance at life.

At the age of 18 months, Tracy was found to have a rare disease called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, which scars the liver, blocks the blood flow and eventually causes liver failure.

Living in Southland at the time, she had a sickly childhood, spending more time in hospital than out. "I couldn't go out and play like the other kids. I would just lie around on the couch, I was so lethargic."

When she was 10, she was told a transplant – then not available in New Zealand – was the only option.

A national fund-raising campaign sent Tracy and family to Cambridge, England.

Specialists gave her only a few weeks to live, but she was "very very lucky".

A donor was found within seven days.

The operation went well and Tracy recovered quickly. Within months she was back in New Zealand.

But her body soon rejected the new liver and she had to make an emergency trip back to Britain, where she was put back on the transplant list. Again she defied the odds.

"Within 24 hours I had a donor. Someone was on my side."

The operation was a success and the gift – from the family of a child her own age – has transformed her life.

"I'm good. I'm fantastic. I work full-time, I'm hugely involved in theatre. It is unbelievable. I had a second chance at life."

New Zealand kidney and liver transplant programme medical director Stephen Munn said the world's longest-surviving liver transplant recipient had her operation in 1970, at the age of three. Since then, there had been enormous advances in transplantation.

Tracy hoped her story would encourage organ donation. She also called for a donor's wishes to be made binding, so relatives could not over-ride a person's decision to donate.

Courtesy of the Dominion Post www.stuff.co.nz