WalesOnline - News - Transplant miracle Allison planning to be doctor herself

WalesOnline - News - Cardiff News - Transplant miracle Allison planning to be doctor herselfMedical student Allison John is the first person in Britain to have had all her major organs replaced. Greg Tindle discovers just what she’s gone through

AS budding doctor Allison John helps out on the ward rounds most patients would be amazed at just what the medical student has been through.

And when she finally qualifies, no-one but Allison should know more about the importance of a doctor’s bedside manner.

For Allison, 30, is living proof of the importance of organ donation, having received three massive transplants to replace her liver, heart and lungs and finally her kidneys.

All the transplants have proved a success and put her in the record books as the first person in the UK to have all her major organs replaced.

And during all of this Allison has herself helped save a life – donating her heart to a pensioner in Kent.

Despite all this disruption to her life, which started when she was just 17, Allison is now on course to eventually fulfil her dream and start work as a doctor.

Allison had embarked on her medical degree in 2001 and was four years into the five-year course when she had kidney failure and was forced into a three-year break to recover from her final transplant.

It’s only in the past few months that Allison has felt fit enough to resume her studies and is now well on course to complete the final stages of her degree in medicine at Cardiff University.

She said: “I haven’t felt so well for years. Since the kidney transplant I’ve got more energy and got my appetite back and like nothing better than a spicy Mexican meal.”

The kidney transplant carried out two-and-a-half years ago at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales was doubly special for Allison as the donor was her dad, David John, who was discovered to be a perfect match for his ailing daughter.

“When I had kidney problems I was losing a lot of weight, I couldn’t eat properly because everything tasted metallic, and I felt sick all the time and unable to drink very much.”

It was while she was convalescing from the transplant that Allison threw herself into voluntary work supporting the charity Kidney Foundation Wales and encouraging more people to sign up for the UK organ donor register.