Ninth day of Christmas. (Slow down, Christmas, don’t go yet…)
Two friends have supplied the songs for today.
The first one up is Keeleigh. Her transplant story began shortly after she was born, leading to a multi-organ transplant as she was beginning her teenage years. Keeleigh wrote about it in a blog for these pages, in September 2018. This year she’s won a shelf-full of medals at the European Transplant Sports Championships, in Lisbon, Portugal, and the British Transplant Games in Nottingham, become Team Manager for the Birmingham Adults Transplant team, and been selected to represent the GB&NI team at the World Transplant Games in Dresden, in August 2025. (And, of course, much more, with a generous dose of laughing and dancing.) And somewhere, an organ donor and their family have made it all possible. On her transplant anniversary in December 2024, Keeleigh said, “The gratitude and grief for a family that I’ve never met, continues to influence my day to day decisions on how I choose to live the incredible gift that is life.”
And so, to Keeleigh’s songs…
“There’s a couple of songs that have such a huge impact on my transplant story. Never had a dream come true, by S Club played as we pulled into the car park of the hospital in the early hours of the 16th December 2011, and was the first song that my family heard on the radio when I came out of theatre on the 17th! The wording is very, very fitting of course! ‘Never had a dream come true, till the day that I found you,’ speaks for itself!
The Climb, by Miley Cyrus is a big one, (and is for some of our other contributors in this 12-day series) talking about how things aren’t always smooth sailing, but it’s about the journey we endure, not the destination.
One of my personal favourites is Fight song, by Rachel Platten. ‘This is my fight song, take back my life song, Prove I’m alright song, My power’s turned on, Starting right now I’ll be strong. I’ll play my fight song, And I don’t really care if nobody else believes, ‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.’
More recently, there was a song played at the Australia World Transplant Games, 2023, Because of you, by Rose Parker. I believe you can find it in the opening ceremony video on YouTube, just skip to minute 39 for the song. It speaks about both sides to transplantation and organ donation and is beautiful!!”
Keeleigh
There’s no shortage of images in the last song for today, contributed by Jane, the mum of a transplant recipient. Like Keeleigh, Jane’s son, James, is part of that whirling, dancing, caring group of friends from the Transplant Games, and no stranger to climbing the medal winner podiums. His climbing also includes many a high peak, including Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike, and Snowdon all within 22hrs 39 minutes. Just as courageously James shared his transplant story in a blog for Live Loudly Donate Proudly in September 2018.
We often talk of the transplant journey and its hospital adventures and misadventures, as a rollercoaster. Highs and lows, out of our immediate control, taking us where it goes, like it or not. Sometimes, some of us begin to dread the mention of the word, with all its connotations. An attentive listening to Jane’s chosen song, Windmills of your mind, sung by All Angels, offers an echo of the dizzying experience and mental entanglement for those intimately involved in the world of transplants. Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon…a clock whose hands are sweeping…
Jane