A brave 22-year-old women who is terminally ill has spoke of how she has made a heartbreaking and difficult decision to refuse a new heart and lungs. Channan Petrides has bravely decided not to follow doctors orders to undergo not one but two transplant operations which could be potentially life threatening as she wants to be well enough fulfill her final weeks by ticking off her bucket list.
Ms Petrides, who suffers from an incurable form of cystic fibrosis, has been waiting on the transplant list since September 2014. Channan told reporters that she chose to remove herself because of the serious potential risks the operation would pose.
Channan said difficult and somewhat brave decision was not greatly received by her loved ones at first, which resulted in some of her family members refusing to speak to her. However she has now said that her family are now fully supportive of her brave decision and have come to understand her way of thinking.
Channan told the British press:”I know I’ve taken a massive risk but I want to enjoy the time I have left, rather than stick waiting to get a call that may never come.” “Cystic fibrosis feels like having a plastic bag over your head and breathing through a straw so a lot of patients who have transplants have to learn to breathe again because they aren’t used to taking in that much air.””If it brought me another twenty years, of course I’d do it, but doctors told me there was a chance I’d die on the operating table or my new organs would fail after just six months.” Channan was born with cystic fibrosis.”
Channan who is from Stanford, Essex, was diagnosed with the disease at birth after doctors became overly concerned when she struggled to gain any weight over the first couple of months as a newborn.
Normally doctors say that a person who suffers from the severe medical condition has the average life expectancy of 40 years of age, but Channan’s health tragically began to rapidly deteriorate when she became 19 years old. Channan suffered a major setback in November 2014 after she was admitted to hospital with a severe chest infection and looked increasing unlikely to pull through.
However Channan somehow defied the odds that doctors had given her family that she would not survive and made a recovery, Channon has since said that the experience made her rethink her place on the transplant list, believing that she would not survive again.
She bravely and somewhat heroically came to the decision that she would not undergo any further treatment and decided to devote her remaining time by working her way through her bucket list. Channan has vowed to make the most of the year doctors say she has left to live.
Amazingly Channan has already fulfilled some of her dreams on her bucket list which included taking a helicopter ride over London, meeting West Ham United football team and receiving signed goodies from music sensation Ed Sheeran.
Although Channan has yet to fulfill her ultimate aim of walking the red carpet of the Brit Awards, but is determined to do so. Ms Petrides decided to post her heartbreaking story on Facebook just after Christmas last year.
Her posts have received great support from people across the world, with nearly 35,000 sharing her posts in support of her. Channan said: “I was nervous to upload it because I’m not one for sympathy.” “I’ve had messages of support from everywhere from Africa to Australia. The outpouring of support gets me through the day.”
The brave young woman also said that she intends to educate others on cystic fibrosis before she dies, saying: “People struggle to believe how ill I am because I don’t look it.” “But the truth is that I do only have a certain amount of time left to live. “We really need better understanding of cystic fibrosis and how to treat it.”