Raring to Go Now I’Ve Got a New Heart (and Lungs)

By MICHELLE FIDDLER

A HEART and lung transplant patient today told how he was in training for a half-marathon.

Lee Barlow, who celebrates his 35th birthday today, underwent revolutionary surgery at Greater Manchester’s Wythenshawe Hospital last January.

Now a year on he is gearing up for a 10k run in May, followed by a white water rafting day in June and a half marathon later in the year.

He is also due to take part in the British Transplant Games, in Sheffield, in August.

And in his spare time he has been volunteering at Fazakerley hospital’s Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit.

Lee, of Roundhey Stockbridge Village, had mechanical devices inserted to pump blood and oxygen around his body as it accepted a transplanted heart.

It was the first time both a mechanical heart and lungs were used together on the same patient in Britain.

Previously healthy Lee, a builder, was diagnosed with an enlarged heart in July 2006.

Since his operation Lee and his friends and family have been busy raising money for the New Start charity.

His niece Natalie Barlow and her friend Christa Aspinall recently took part in a sky dive raising almost pounds 1,700.

Lee, who hopes to start a new career in physiotherapy, said: “The operation has given me a whole new lease of life.

“Trying to get back to fitness was the hardest bit. But it’s getting easier now.

“I have never been a runner because I was asthmatic from the age of eight but since the operation my breathing has been much better.

“I have also started volunteering at the hospital helping other cardiac patients. Some of them can’t believe what happened to me last year.”

michellefiddler@liverpoolecho.co.uk

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