Author(s): Moss Larsen

General

When Shirley Larsen woke one winter's night in June 1984, in excruciating pain from an egg-sized swelling on her right wrist, little did she know what fate had in store. Diagnosed later with rheumatoid arthritis, complications of which would rapidly destroy her lung tissue, she faced certain death. This is the remarkable story of an ordinary Australian family's struggle to save the life of a beloved wife and mother, against seemingly overwhelming odds, and with no cure available in Australia. With only weeks to live, it soon becomes a desperate crisade that eventually transports Shirley, critically ill and attached to an oxygen cylinder, to England, culminating in a dramatically successful heart and lungs transplant in a Londaon hospital. We are taken perceptively into the patient's and the physicians' challenging world of organ transplantation with its opposing and overwhelming emotions of uplifting elation and traumatic heartache. Revealed in the text are the obfuscations of an ineffective government hierarchy unwilling to acknowledge the rights of two of its citizens and an equally convoluted bureaucracy.
Refreshingly, the overwhelming support of the trade union movement both in Australia and in Britain brings its own heart-warming consolation. Shirley Larsen's extraordinary story will give hope to those critically ill Australians who are desperately waiting for the chance to live a healthy life by having an organ transplant. It should also arouse in others the noblest of human instincts - altruisn - by becoming organ donors.