At just 19 years old, Jessica Wales has been waiting for a double lung transplant for over 2 years now. Without one this year, she will have just celebrated her last ever Christmas.

Jessica is the South East Advocate for Live Life Then Give Life.

My name is Jessica Wales, I am 18 years old and I live in Kent. I was born in 1989, in the early hours of the morning, and at first everything appeared completely normal.

I was a normal and healthy baby until at about four months old I was rushed to hospital with a severe pneumonia. After I managed to fight back from an extremely critical situation, my parents were told I had Cystic Fibrosis – the UK’s most common life threatening inherited disease. From then on I began the daily medications and treatments to try and keep me well, but I was in and out of hospital regularly with different chest infections.

I managed to keep quite well until at the age of 7 I was diagnosed with MRSA and had to stay in hospital for a long time. Once the hospital had managed to get that under control, I stayed relatively well until at 11 years old I began to need Intravenous Antibiotics every three months in order to keep infections at bay. Around this time I also had a portacath fitted, to make giving the IV drugs easier, and then was diagnosed with Diabetes and started insulin to bring it under control.

In 2005, I was approached by my doctors who said I might need a transplant. By now I was also being fed via a PEG tube into my stomach and was using oxygen overnight. I was sent for assessment in July, and went on the waiting list straight away.

That was nearly two years ago now, and I have only had one false alarm, where I was called, went all the way to the hospital, and then it turned out the organs were not viable. I don’t know what the future holds, but I am desperate to live, I feel I haven’t done enough yet; I am only 18 years old.

A transplant to me would mean the world. Not only would I get back my life but my family would get back the girl they used to know and my boyfriend would get back his girlfriend.