During National Transplant Week, which ends on Sunday, the NHS is encouraging people to register as organ donors. CHRIS WILKIN talked to a man with good reason to be grateful to someone who did just that

 

A CANCER victim who “died” twice during transplant surgery but lived to tell the tale is urging others to become organ donors.

Terry Faber needed a life-saving liver transplant after collapsing during a barbecue at his Southend home two years ago.

Ambulance crews broke down a toilet door to find him in a pool of his own blood.

Doctors told Terry, 49, he had lost three pints of blood and his liver was totally ruined.

He said: “They said I needed a transplant. I thought, ‘That’s it.

This is the end of my life. It’s over’.

“I’d read about transplant lists and people waiting three years. A liver wasn’t just going to appear, so as far as I was concerned, that was it.”

Terry was astonished when one did become available – just six days after he went on the waiting list.

He was rushed to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and spent 18 hours in surgery.

Terry said: “They lost me twice.

Technically, I died and they resuscitated me.”

When he came round, Terry discovered the surgeons had given him a new liver, small bowel, pancreas, stomach and a metre of new colon.

He said: “You can imagine my reaction. Obviously, it was a bit of a shock. I didn’t even know anyone who’d had a transplant, never mind experiencing one myself, but I’d carried a donor card since I was 18.

“I always felt if something happened to me, they could take what they liked. Now it had come full circle.”

After eight months in hospital, Terry was finally allowed home, only for his weakened immune system to lead to a bout of pneumonia last Christmas.

He is now back out, and determined to live life to the full.

Terry said: “I’m hoping I’ll be able to start work again soon, part-time at least.

“The thing is, without the transplants,I wouldn’t be talking to you now, let alone making plans.”

These days, he takes every day as it comes, though he still has some longer-term ambitions.

The West Ham fan, who now lives in Dove Crescent, Dovercourt, said: “I want to see the Hammers play at the Olympic Stadium, with my sons when they move there in 2016.

“Before then, my son, Bobby and I are going to watch them play Colchester in a pre-season friendly next Tuesday.”