Pancreas transplant 'gives former teacher a life'

Rebecca Wooldridge said the transplant has transformed her life

A former teacher says she has been "given a life" after undergoing a pancreas transplant.

Rebecca Wooldridge, 37, from Angle in Pembrokeshire, was passing out twice a day due to the Type 1 diabetes she was diagnosed with at 15.

Despite a rigorous regime, she had developed complications with her eyes, hands, feet and digestive system.

For 20 months after surgery she had to fight the organ being rejected. But doctors have now give the all-clear.

Miss Woolridge told her story after the good news from doctors.

She said it was worth it because it has brought an end to the years struggling with "brittle diabetes", and its complications, which forced her to give up teaching.

Despite regular insulin injections, her blood glucose levels would fluctuate dangerously.

Miss Wooldridge said: "Before the operation I was basically existing. I could not function properly. I couldn't have a normal day-to-day life.

"I felt like every muscle in my body ached. I was getting cramps and, going the other way, my limbs went numbs.

"I could get up and not feel my feet underneath. My legs would buckle and I would end up on the floor."

Her medical team at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff had planned for her to have an islet cells transplant, using cells harvested from donor pancreases to replace destroyed cells in the pancreas.

But a decline in her health out paced the wait of more than a year for funding and the three-to-five year wait for the procedure, prompting the sole pancreas transplant instead.

Pancreas transplants are usually combined with kidney transplants for people with Type 1 diabetes and severe kidney failure.

Together they remove the need for both insulin injections and dialysis. Miss Wooldridge did not have an accompanying kidney transplant.

Miss Wooldridge had the operation in May 2009, but a blood clot led to an initial rejection of the organ which has taken until now to overcome.

She said: "Because the last 20 months have been so focused on the pancreas operation and everything that has happened since then, I haven't really thought thought about when I was a diabetic.

"Now, all of a sudden, I'm recollecting the time when I was diabetic. I had forgotten how bad I really was.

"I can go out now on my own and not have a fear of collapsing and I can eat what I want, whenever I want.

"Before it was so rigid - I could not to miss a meal before, everything had to be so regimented."

Miss Wooldridge said she was now thinking of returning to work, perhaps in the education or media field.

She is one of 19 people who have undergone a sole pancreas transplant in Wales since 2005. Around 40 such operations take place each year in the UK.

Dai Williams, national director of Diabetes UK Cymru, said: "Transplant treatments have been shown to be effective for a number of people with diabetes who are struggling with their condition.

"Diabetes UK would encourage everyone to join the organ donor register and to let their relatives know about their intentions."