Live Life Then Give Life

Cannock Wood campaigner urges supporters to live life, then give life

This season’s fashion ‘must have’ is to die for…unless campaigner Mark Allen gets his message across in time.

The 34-year-old is the first in the Midlands to don the new Live Life then Give Life T-shirt, part of a campaign to highlight the chronic lack of organ donors in the UK.

Last year more than 400 people died waiting for a transplant and there are currently over 6,500 on the waiting list.

It’s a personal crusade for Mark – who received a life-saving double lung transplant himself last October – but is only too aware that many of his friends still on the list will wait in vain.

Mark’s health problems were caused by Cystic Fibrosis, the UK’s most common life-threatening genetic disease, which affects various organs of the body, in particular the lungs and the digestive system. The average life expectancy of a CF sufferer in the UK is just 31 years, with the majority of deaths caused by progressive lung damage.

It’s through the Cystic Fibrosis connection that Mark got to know the inspirational duo behind the Live Life Then Give Life campaign – Emily Thackray, aged 21, from West Ewell, Surrey and Emma Harris (32), from Pewsey, Wiltshire. Emily and Emma also have Cystic Fibrosis.

Doctors told Emily that she had just 12 months to live without a double lung transplant. It’s now 13 months on and she is yet to receive her life-saving operation.

With time running out for Emily, she and Emma decided to take matters into their own hands with the Live Life Then Give Life campaign and launch of the accompanying website at http://www.livelifethengivelife.co.uk/.

Emily said: “Time is running out for me, but if this project doesn’t save my life, I am certain it will save others, and am fiercely determined to do all I can to encourage people to talk about organ donations and if they support it, show it.”

Mark added: ”The emotions I experienced after my transplant are impossible to describe. I found myself breathing on my own, with oxygen, with someone else’s lungs; somebody who was no longer with us, but who was living on inside me and fighting hard to keep me alive. It’s thanks to them that I’m ready to take on the world again.

“I know I was one of the lucky ones. People need to know of the shortage of organs and the plight of the people on the list. We’ve got to get people to talk about the issue of transplantation openly and frankly.”

Perhaps surprisingly, you are statistically more likely to need a transplant than to become a donor – and yet while the vast majority of people support the idea of organ donation, only 22% have signed the organ donor register.

Now Mark is urging others to send out a positive message and encourage people to think and talk about their wishes, by wearing one of the campaign’s specially designed T-shirts, sporting the Live Life Then Give Life message or the cheeky I’d Give You One slogan.

The campaign also supports Transplants in Mind, the national charity behind National Transplant Week and the Donor Bus – promoting the positive benefits of organ and tissue donation for transplantation, throughout the year.

You can sign up to the NHS Organ Donation Register online at http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/.

To find out more about the Live Life then Give Life campaign and T-shirts, see http://www.livelifethengivelife.co.uk/.
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Mark is available for interviews and/or photos.
Please contact him direct on CLICK

Picture: Mark’s friends Emma Harris and Emily Thackray promote the Live Life Then Give Life campaign.

Transplants in Mind
http://www.timeinmind.co.uk/
For further information on Transplants in Mind, contact Sue Johnstone on 01179 314638 or sue@transplantsinmind.fsnet.co.uk

CF Trust
http://www.cftrust.org.uk/
For further information on Cystic Fibrosis, contact CF Trust press officer Gemma Foy on 0208 290 7912 or 07813 949633 or gfoy@cftrust.org.uk