Medal Tally:

5 Gold, 9 Silver and 3 Bronze

Medal Tally:

1 Gold, 6 Silver and 5 Bronze

Eight of the 15 strong team of athletes attending   the     Sheffield Transplant Games pictured    with the sponsors of the track suits, Lesley Bell from Haden  Building Services. 

Lung Transplants, Exercise and the UK Transplant Games     My name is Sean Bell and I was lucky enough to receive a double lung transplant in Dec 2006 at the age of 40. (I'm in the photo above kneeling down in the front row with the cap on.) My recovery was traumatic and long winded but I got back on my feet eventually with fantastic help from the Wythenshawe Transplant Team.  

I'd always been interested in sport and keeping fit through my life and had managed to keep fairly active until my mid 30's when my own lungs started to show the life long strain of Cystic Fibrosis. When I first started talking about transplant with the transplant team, Judith, one of the transplant co-ordinators, mentioned that the annual UK Transplant Games might be something I'd be interested in. The Transplant Games are an annual Olympics style national event open to anyone in the UK who has had an organ transplant. The aims of the Games are to recognise a new start for all the transplant recipients; to promote the importance of organ donation and the benefits of keeping active and above all to celebrate the chance of new life following transplant.  

Once out of hospital and home my rehabilitation started in earnest. Due to my extended stay in intensive care and slow recovery I'd been bed bound for around 5 months and the resultant muscle wastage was huge. With the help, support, guidance and extreme sadistic torture of the transplant physiotherapists I had to virtually learn to walk again from scratch, starting with a zimmer frame one step at a time and slowly progressing to walking sticks and finally 'going solo' and abandoning my stick in July 07. In the August I re-joined my local gym and a personal trainer developed a tailored fitness programme combining weights and cardio vascular machines to gradually build up my body and reverse the years of decline that my muscles had endured fighting the ravages of Cystic Fibrosis and transplant surgery.

The first few months of exercise where a total nightmare as my non-existent muscles were assaulted by the various machines and exercises set out in my programme. Eventually things did get easier and I slowly started to improve.   6 months later, after regularly attending the gym at least 3 times a week, I had recovered all my lost weight, regained muscles I'd totally forgotten about, and drastically improved my fitness level. So in February of this year I walked into Janice's office and registered my interest formally for the 50m Freestyle and 50m Breastroke swimming and Throwing the Cricket Ball field event. Now all I had to do was get training as I'd only just been given the all clear to start swimming again (due to infection risk).  

All too quickly the big day arrived, or should I say long weekend, because the Transplant Games were held over 4 days in August. A huge number of sports are represented; from swimming and athletics as mentioned, to volleyball, badminton, cycling, fishing, archery, table tennis, golf, darts and even ten pin bowling. Each year a different city hosts the games and this year it was in Sheffield. The events are all held in prestigious venues around the city and the organisation is really professional and this really helps to create a great atmosphere. Some of the competitors are extremely talented and train very hard in order to do fantastic performances. However the spirit of the games is all about taking part and celebrating new life and new capabilities therefore many other people enter the games for the fun of competing, meeting old friends and making new ones and generally do it 'because they can'. I fall into this latter category, I was never likely to set a new games record in any of my events, but to think just 18 months ago I was tied to 24 hour oxygen, hardly able to leave the house, had virtually no mobility and the biggest challenge I faced was getting back up the stairs again at the end of another house bound day to go to bed.  

All the teams at the Games are made up from different transplant hospitals around the UK. Fortunately all the events are split into age categories, so that old cronies like me aren't pitched against spritely young 18 year olds who just call you grandad. I was in the 'senior' category which is ages 30-45 years, but believe me, the winning times are still really impressive. There were over 600 competitors in total, covering hospital teams from all over the UK from Plymouth to Glasgow.  

The swimming was held at Sheffield's International Pool at Ponds Forge; it was like walking into the Beijing Olympics when I entered the building, with timekeepers and officials everywhere, electronic timing, huge results boards and a large number of spectators. Some of the 'elite' swimmers were also wearing those Speedo all in one second skin swim suits, I looked down at my £6.99 'Decathlon Special' shorts and thought woah! I have to get one of them posh suits for next year!  The atmosphere was great though and very friendly.   The only real problem I had with all of this was the actual start of my race, as I'd never dived in off starting blocks before. So as I lined up for the 50m freestyle it was 'no guts no glory' time. As I stared down the 50m pool it seemed like the finish line was half a mile away and I was standing on a 5m diving board even though the starting blocks are probably less than a foot high. Anyway we were called to starter's orders, the crowd went quiet, an eerie stillness descended around the pool and I prepared to do my best Michael Phelps impression. The gun sounded with a high pitched electronic wail and in I plunged; about 5 seconds after everyone else as my reactions where very poor. When I eventually surfaced from the dive I noticed virtually everyone else had disappeared! I suddenly realised they were half way down the pool and I wasn't even into my stroke yet! Anyway the adrenaline was flowing and off I went. There's no surprise that I got nowhere near the medal positions but interestingly enough I clocked 51 seconds for the 50m, this was a personal best time for me by a clear 10 seconds so I felt really chuffed and realised I could only do that because of being in competition.

After the race I chatted to the guy who had come second and he told me he had represented South Africa at swimming 10 years previously when he was 20, now 31, he had since immigrated to the UK, had a kidney transplant and continued swimming. All that experience and he still only managed silver medal position. My next event was the 50m breastroke, again I didn't get near the medals but did another personal best by 10 seconds in clocking 60 seconds.   The next day saw the Track and Field meeting held at the Don Valley Stadium. This was another full day of events for all ages including children. The Don Valley Stadium is a fantastic venue which was built for the World Student Games about 15 year ago and again it was a really professional environment. The cricket ball throw was my 'baptism of fire' for the track and field, each competitor was allowed 3 throws and logged their best throw. I managed 39.5m and came in 9th from a field of 15. Wythenshawe did really well at this event as Lee Barlow threw 52m coming 5th, and Simon Harris took Gold with a whopping 68m. Goodness knows what medication he is on to get that distance!  

So another Transplant Games were a great success for all involved. Team Wythenshawe did fantastically well in getting 1 gold, 6 silvers and 4 bronze medals. Now the focus is on next years games being held in Coventry. I've set some new goals to improve my swimming times and to enter some running events in the athletics competition so hopefully this will help me to focus on keeping active and using these new lungs to their full capacity. All of these new life experiences are only possible due to the wonderful gift of life given to me by my donor family.  

See you next year in Coventry!   Sean Bell

John Wilson brought   home our    first medal   of the games   - a Silver in   the fishing!

Here is John pictured receiving     his medal.  Next year     he is going  for gold...

The Opening Parade and Ceremony   the first     day of the Games.  Matthew Stephenson held the banner for team Wythenshawe.

More news will be added about this great event at a later date. Everybody that took part in the Games should be proud of their achievements. The following individuals gained medal successes too - within different categories/age sections:

FOUR GOLD MEDALS:

• 100m  Hurdles - Paul Brennan
• Tennis - Andy McGarry
• Darts - Simon Harris
• 5k Run - Paul Harris

THREE SILVER MEDALS

• Relay 4x 100m - Paul Brennan et al
• Snooker - Andy McGarry
• Golf - Andy McGarry

SIX BRONZE MEDALS

• Volleyball - Paul Brennan
• 50m Butterfly - Simon Harris
• 200m - Paul Harris
• 200m - Paul Brennan
• Shot Putt - Steve Carver
• 100m - Paul Harris

The Wythenshawe Team for this year's British Transplant Games consisted of 9 competitors and 2 supporters of which Laura White was the only transplantee making her first appearance. All the competitors have received either a heart or a lung transplant at Wythenshawe with the age range of the team being 21 - 57.

The majority of the team stayed on campus at Bath University as this was deemed to be more practical with the main sporting and social events being held on-site.

For those of you who count such things as important our medal tally was:

***  13 GOLD ***        ***  2 SILVER  ***         ***  9 BRONZE  *** 

The competition started before the offical opening of The Games with the volleyball.  After 2 hours of strong competition we managed to 'dig' and 'volley' our way to a Gold medal against 5 other teams, beating Addenbrookes of Cambridge in the final.

DAY 1 - Thursday, August 17th: 

The opening ceremony took place later on in the evening and was excellent.  We marched into 'The Rec', the home of the might Bath rugby union team, and the crowd, who had filled one of the grandstands were generous in their welcome for all of the teams.  Claire Downer of Bristol read the Games oath on behalf of all competitors and following the handover of the torch from Paul Fearon to Stuart Kaye and Jack Goodland, the Games were declared open.

DAY 2 - Friday, August 18th:

Four team members decided that it was a good idea to enter the golf - we were defintely misguided!!  The weather was abysmal:  major downpours ensued accompanied by thunder and lightening.  The claxon to abandon would surely have gone if it were not for the fact that it was our only chance to complete the competition.  A five-hour round causing us to take shelter from the storm on three occasions played havoc with the scoring.  However, from the midst of adversity we found success, Ian Lewis-Jones claimed a bronze medal in the Scratch competition missing out on gold by a single shot;  while Simon Harris took bronze in the (19 - 27) category.

Day 3 - Saturday, August 19th:

Following an evening of socialising on the Friday night, the team went their separate ways.  Laura White along with her mum had arrived late on Friday after a hard day at work, tiredness was hopefully not going to deter her from her first ever event at the Games - a bit of ping-pong or should I say table tennis?  Most of the boys meanwhile went to play snooker.  Laura showed  no nerves at all and managed to pick-up a bat, hit a few balls over a net and walked away with a bronze medal - the first of many!!  Over at the Snooker Club, news came filtering back that Andy McGarry had also been hitting a few tennis balls and won a gold medal with Neil bagging his second bronze medal of the Games.

The afternoon and evening brought more competition and more medals, the swimming pool was a success for Laura and Simon and the tennis court natually brought a gold for Andy who I think was born with a tennis racquet in his hand.   However, my personal favourite event at the Games over the last few years is the Darts - as Team Manager I think Wythenshawe have made this their own.  Jeff Pickavance and Ray Mullins duly kept their promise and brought home some more silverware or should I say Gold and Bronze respectively.  This is the third consecutive year for Jeff to triumph.  Gold medals in the snooker and darts should definitely be giving the surgeons and staff in the unit an idea of the lifestyle the Wythenshawe team leads...!

Competition is not the only reason why Wythenshawe consistently manages to keep their team members once they have attended the British Games.  I can honestly say it is like an annual reunion and the School Disco was a testament to that.  We partied into the early hours and had a great time catching up with old friends and making new ones.  However, for one unfortunate soul of the team this wasn't the case - Paul Brennan had to compete the following day in the athletics.

Day 4 - Sunday, August 20th:

Athletics - I have to admit isn't my favourite part of the week.  It reminds me that the Games are quickly coming to an end and also makes me feel guilty about how little exercise I do during the year!

Once again, the standard varied - you had those super athletes who train 3 or 4 times a week and naturally walked, ran and jumped to their medals whilst others were just happy to be there.   Some, however are more than happy just to be able to take part and competing is a success in itself and proves that transplantation is a life changing experience.

Paul Brennan duly showed his athleticism with a Silver medal in the 200m and a Bronze in the 400m.  Running heats in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 4x100m before running finals all in one day is not an easy task - admiration or idiot is all I can say!  We actually had a full team for the 4x100m relay this year, but typically there were 18 teams all running in 3 separate heats vying to make the top 8 and the final.  How we didn't make the final is beyond me, I could have complained as to how a team with a Roman Gladiator on the anchor leg could have possibily beaten us but decided against it. 

The Gala Dinner:

An excellent meal at the Bath Pavilion was followed by a lively speech by our chairman Christine Evans.  It is just a shame that others try to jump on the bandwagon and droll on when all we want to do is relax and enjoy the final few hours of the Games on the dance floor.  However, a good time was still had by all - with an excellent barbeque organised by the St Hellier team to follow in the wee hours of Monday morning back on campus.

To sum up the 2006 British Games:

• One of the best I have attended
• Excellent volunteers and organisers always willing to help
• Sporting facilities were great
• Campus accommodation was not the greatest, should the team consider a guesthouse nearby in the future?
• Another great reunion and also made some more friends
• A big thank-you to New Start for subsidising the team

13 Gold

2 Silver

9 Bronze

Team volleyball - Gold
Paul Brennan - 200m silver & 400m bronze
Simon Harris - Badminton & golf bronze
Ian Lewis-Jones - Badminton & snooker - bronze
Neil McDonald - Badminton & snooker - bronze
Andy McGarry - Tennis & snooker - gold
Ray Mullins - Darts - bronze
Jeff Pickavance - Darts - gold
Laura White - 100m freestyle & High jump - gold:  50m freestyle - silver:
Shot putt and table tennis - bronze

The Wythenshawe Team took part in the Transplant Volleyball Tournament this November 2006. After beating teams from Belfast, Leeds/Liverpool, the Royal Freeman and Addenbrookes in the group stages, the team went through to the quarter finals to beat Bristol/Papworth, then Newcastle RVI in the semis. They finally took on Manchester and beat them 34-17! Congratulations on being the Volleyball Champions!