Published at 11:09, Friday, 12 March 2010

A building society boss who was given a new liver only three months ago is in training for the British Transplant Games.

• Video: John Leveson: The road to recovery

John Leveson

John Leveson, 50, is the deputy chief executive of Cumberland Building Society.

Three years ago, following a routine blood test, he was diagnosed with a rare liver disease which attacks the immune system.

By the end of last year his body was shutting down and he was spending 18 hours a day in bed.

There were no drugs which could cure his condition, just medication to ease it.

But his post-transplant recovery has been so impressive that he intends to run, cycle and swim at the British Transplant Games in August.

John found out he had primary sclerosing cholangitis two days before he was due to fly out to America to climb the continent’s biggest mountain, Mount Aconcaqua.

He said: “I remember the consultant saying that I could live to be an old man and it may not have much impact on my life as it can be a disease which progresses slowly, unfortunately it wasn’t like that for me and my health deteriorated rapidly.

“First it was extreme exhaustion, weight loss and jaundice. My daughters said I looked like Homer Simpson

“Then my kidneys stopped working properly and it started to effect my brain, I found it very difficult to concentrate.”

John, who lives in Langwathby, near Penrith, with his wife Anne and two young daughters, was put on the transplant waiting list last September. He got a call at 2am on December 22 to say a liver was waiting for him at the Freeman hospital in Newcastle. The operation took place overnight and lasted 10 hours.

The scar it left runs across John’s stomach and is referred to in the medical profession as a Mercedes Benz because it looks like the famous car badge.

He said: “As soon as they took me off the morphine and I knew what was happening I realised I was feeling better, transplants truly are miraculous.”

John hopes his times in the British Transplant Games will be fast enough to qualify for the world games in 2011.

Over the next year he will also take on three long-distance walks. First it is a 55-mile trek along the North Yorkshire coastal path, next up is an 84-mile Hadrian’s Wall hike and the final challenge will be 260 miles over the Cornish coastal route.

Carlisle United are donating all the training kit and that is where the sponsorship requests end.

It’s not people’s money John’s after, it’s their attention. He added: “I want to raise awareness of the shortage of organ donors.

“If I hadn’t had a transplant my liver would have failed and I would have died, I’ve been given the wonderful gift of a second chance at life. “It’s hard to describe what it feels like to know that you’re alive because someone was brave or considerate enough to sign the organ donor register.

“Not everyone is that lucky, three people die a week in this country because there aren’t enough donors. Three people who could be sitting here and making plans like me.”

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk