By Emily Parsons

Last updated at 08:35, Tuesday, 12 March 2013

For 15 years, Leza Smith has relied on insulin injections and a careful diet to keep her diabetes under control.

Leza Smith, right, with nurse Jean Melville

Related: Gruelling daily routine of woman who needs both a kidney and pancreas transplant

But just four weeks after a life-saving double transplant, it appears the operation has not only given her back her life, but has “cured” her diabetes.

The 32-year-old Carlisle woman was one of the first stories to feature as part of The Cumberland News’ Promise Life organ donation campaign in May when she revealed the gruelling routine she had to undergo simply to stay alive.

Leza was in pancreatic and renal failure and needed both a kidney and pancreas transplant.

Every night she sterilised herself before attaching the catheter in her stomach to a dialysis machine for eight hours.

She could not survive without the peritoneal dialysis, and even had to transport the machine to her boyfriend Hywel’s house in north Wales every second weekend.

Leza remained positive throughout though, and her patience was rewarded at the end of January, after 13 months on the transplant waiting list.

“Got the call about 1.45am on January 27,” she recalls. “I raced back from Wales with Hywel, but I still did not believe it would reallyhappen.

“I’d had two other calls previous to that, and there are so many complications in terms of the cross-match side of it.

“Very often the pancreas is the one that’s the most difficult to get or know what kind of condition it’s in and how suitable it is.”

With each of the previous calls Leza, marketing manager for window and doors firm Finesse in Denton Holme, Carlisle, was sent home.

It was not until the final moments that she realised this time really was for real.

“The only time I thought it would go ahead was when the anaesthetist came for me,” she admits. “It then all happened so quickly. I saw the anaesthetist, and the next minute I was waking up in intensive care with lots of tubes hanging out of me.”

Her surgeon was Professor Derek Manas, a 55-year-old previously featured in The Cumberland News because of his role as professor of transplantation at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

He is also director of the Institute of Transplantation based at the hospital and consultant hepatobiliary and transplant surgeon.

Leza says: “He was superb – but everything at Newcastle was first class.

“Everybody there is dedicated to their jobs and I couldn’t fault any of them.”

Three weeks after the operation, Leza was allowed home for one night, to see how she coped with her new tablets and medication.

She was then discharged, although she still needs twice-weekly check-ups for the moment.

Currently the new organs are working almost too well, as Leza’s veins – thinned after her years as a diabetic – are struggling to carry the blood needed.

However, her current ailments are simply a stepping stone on the road to recovery and Leza is instead trying to come to terms with the fact she is no longer diabetic.

After being an insulin-dependent diabetic since the age of 17, the replacement of her pancreas has left Leza with healthy blood sugarlevels.

“That is quite bizarre,” she admits. “Strangely my diet hasn’t changed too much though as I’m still quite good with what I eat.”

Reflecting on her new life, Leza says it has almost been too much to take in.

“I have a new lease of life, thanks to a huge team of people and an incredible surgeon,” she continues.

“I feel extremely lucky – I’ve got a second chance with a lot of things.”

Doctors recommend recipients do not find out too many details about their donor until further down the road to recovery, but Leza knows one thing will never change.

She says: “I can’t even put that side of things into words. That there wouldn’t be a me or a second chance without that donor or that decision being made by the donor and their family.

“That is something that, when you come through the other side of it, you do sort of struggle with – that somebody has been so selfless.

“For that, I am eternally grateful.”

To download an organ donor register form that you can post to NHS Blood and Transplant, click here

To join the register online, visit the NHS Blood and Transplant website here

First published at 08:30, Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk