Aged just 51, she struggled for breath and climbing the stairs, talking and even eating required a momentous effort.

The Dersingham mum-of-two was tied to an extensive drugs regime and oxygen therapy, but worse was yet to come as her condition deteriorated.

Lesley was house-bound and months from death when a double-lung transplant restored her life.

The amazing journey saw her travel from pain and anxiety to hope, euphoria and extreme gratitude.

Reporter Daisy Wallage and photographer Alan Miller met Lesley to discuss life on the waiting list, her operation and living with someone else's lungs.

AT TWENTY to eleven on Tuesday, June 10, Lesley Jones' life changed forever.

It was the call she had been waiting for, the call which could give her back everything stolen by COPD.

Lesley (53) had been on the waiting list for a double-lung transplant since December last year, but bouts of serious illness meant she was removed from the list several times, despite it being her only chance of survival.

She said: "Doctors told me I might not live to see Christmas. I had my doubts I would make it that far.

"At the beginning of the year I had several stays at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I had pneumonia and a total respiratory arrest, meaning I couldn't breathe for myself.

"Now I'm well, it shocks me to the core how close I came."

She had a bleeper beside her 24 hours a day so the transplant team could contact her should a suitable donor be found.

And when it beeped that night, it was the start of a life-changing transformation.

Lesley said: "I was surprisingly very calm. I was more concerned about having to get dressed and asked if I could wear my pyjamas."

A paramedic rushed Lesley to Papworth Hospital, in Cambridgeshire, and reality set in when she was wheeled in to anaesthetic with her daughter Hayley (28).

"They asked me if there was anything I wanted to say because I might not wake up. I told her I loved her and to tell her brother I loved him too," she said.

The transplant operation lasted all day on Tuesday, June 11, and her family faced an anxious wait as surgeons placed Lesley on bypass and cracked her chest open "like a clam shell".

Lesley was kept asleep until Friday, when, amazingly, she was back on her feet and feeling euphoric.

She said: "From the moment I woke up, it was the most incredible feeling. I could breathe! It felt like someone had put a Ferrari engine in an old Ford. I couldn't keep up with my new lungs, it's very hard to describe."

Lesley, a smoker for 38 years, was diagnosed with COPD in 2002 and emphysema gradually took over her life.

She gave up work, moved into a bungalow so she could get around and was eventually hooked up to oxygen 24 hours a day, unable to even clean her teeth without resting midway.

Lesley is chairman of West Norfolk Breathe For Life, a lung condition support group, but she was unable to attend meetings for a year.

She said: "Before my transplant, I couldn't do much of anything. I couldn't even get out of bed straight away. Life was pretty grim. COPD is totally debilitating and destroys your life."

Lesley was fiercely independent and held on to as much of her old life as she could, but she was fighting a losing battle.

"I couldn't have gone on living alone for much longer. I would have ended up a permanent hospital patient or in a hospice," she explained.

Now, just eight weeks after the operation, Lesley is without her oxygen canister, meeting friends and even running.

Although she is tied to a life-long drugs routine, her life is that of a 53-year-old, not an old woman, and she has her cherished freedom back.
She plans to buy a bike, perhaps return to work and get more involved with the support group.

Lesley said: "The lungs feel part of me now. While I still had discomfort, I was always aware I'd had the operation, but now I just get on with it."

Most special of all, Lesley can enjoy her two grandchildren Rosie (5) and Oliver (18 months), playing with them and picking them up for the first time.

She is also planning to visit her son David (32) in Exeter, a Commando heading to Afghanistan in September, for her first holiday in years.

But amid the celebrations, she has not forgotten her donor.

Lesley knows she only received new lungs because a fit, 40-year-old Essex man died suddenly of a brain bleed.

She said: "He has given such an amazing gift. I am going to write to his family to thank them, but it's going to be the hardest thing I've done in my life.

"How can I explain just how much they have given me? I can never repay them. Not only have they given me my life back, they have given my children a mother and their children a grandmother."

Lesley is a firm believer in making donor registration compulsory with an opt-out clause and, despite her happy ending, she is conscious of the fact many people continue to struggle and die from the disease.

She hopes to share her experiences and offer a helping hand to anyone about to embark on the same amazing journey.

• COPD is a term used for a number

of conditions including chronic bronchitis and emphysema;

• To speak to Lesley or find out more about the group, call 01485 540408;

• Click on www.uktransplant.org.uk to learn more about becoming an organ donor.