New lungs gave me my dream wedding

Kirstin's gratitude for donor family

- BY LUCY LAING

THERE will always be three people in Kirstin Smyth's marriage - herself, husband Liam... and the unknown donor whose precious gift of life enabled her to have her wedding day.

Kirstin, 36, was born with the lung condition cystic fibrosis, known as CF, and would have died without the lung transplant which she was given at the end of 2018.

After marrying last November, six years after the operation, she recalls: "It was such an emotional moment for me when I walked down the aisle to marry Liam.

"I'd told him a few days after we first met that I didn't know what the future was going to hold for me - but he wasn't put off.

"Our wedding day was incredibly special, it meant such a lot. All the guests knew what had happened and they were all so happy for us.

"I knew that I wouldn't be standing there, exchanging my wedding vows, if it hadn't been for my donor, and for her family making that brave decision to donate her organs."

Kirstin, who works as a nanny, says her parents had been told her CF meant she would be lucky to reach her teens. When she defied those odds, she was told she would be unlikely to make it to 30.