A woman given two years to live because of severe lung disease should be on an exercise bike within a week after a lung transplant.

Laurel Mavor with her

daughter, Jessica

Laurel Mavor, 41, a graphic designer from Alne, near Easingwold, is recovering well in Newcastle's Freeman Hospital after surgery.

A patient in the same ward is also doing well after receiving a heart from the same donor.

Laurel, a non-smoker, has emphysema, which has left her unable to work and dependent on an oxygen mask for the past five years.

Playing with her nine-year-old daughter, Jessica, seemed an impossibility.

And four months ago she was given the bleak prognosis that without a transplant she had just two years to live.

But last Wednesday she and her husband, Jamie, 39, a joiner, were told a donor had been found.

He said: "At about 5.30pm we got the phone call and I drove as fast as I could with all sorts of things rushing through my mind.

"We'd been told the lung had come from Ireland after an accident and everything matched up.

"At midnight they told us we were going for it so she was all gowned up.

"The last hour was terrifying.

"It was the first time Laurel had got frightened, and as I was giving her a cuddle I was thinking, is this the last time I'm going to see her ?

"But she's such a positive person there was no way she was going to make anything other than a full recovery.

"She's doing really well. She's eaten a big meal, her face looks different already and she's absolutely thrilled. She's in quite a lot of pain but that's being controlled with morphine.

"They're even talking about getting her on an exercise bike early next week."

Jamie has always made it clear to Laurel that if anything happened to him he would want his organs to be used to prolong someone else's life.

He believes the law should be changed so that organ donation is automatic unless the person is carrying a card saying they object.

He said: "Although there has been a terrible tragedy in Ireland, there are two people sitting up in bed in that ward in Newcastle who weren't going to be around much longer.

"For me it will mean no more waking up in the morning to find Laurel sitting beside me with an oxygen mask on.

"We're going to travel, she'll be able to walk our dogs.

"But the main thing she wants to do is be able to play on the front lawn with our daughter and that's what Jessica wants most of all as well."

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