'Stranger's lungs meant I could walk down the aisle - I defied all odds'

There will always be three people in Kirstin Smyth’s marriage - herself, her husband Liam and the stranger who made their wedding day possible.

For Kirstin, 36, was born with the life limiting lung condition cystic fibrosis (CF) and without the lung transplant she received at the end of 2018, she would have died.

Kirstin, a nanny, who married in November 2024, says ‘It was such an emotional moment for me when I walked down the aisle on our wedding day to marry Liam.

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“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 her family making that brave decision to donate her organs.”

Kirstin, who lives in Oxford with landscape gardener Liam, 35, says her parents had been told her CF meant she would be lucky to make her teens.

She defied the odds, but was then told she would be unlikely to make 30. Diagnosed with CF - which damages the lungs, digestive tract and other organs and is an inherited disease caused by a defective gene, affecting the cells that produce mucus, sweat and digestive juices - at six months old, she is the first person in her family to have the condition.

She says: “I wasn’t thriving and when my parents took me to the hospital, the doctor kissed me - and said my skin was salty, which is a sign of cystic fibrosis, so I was sent off for more tests. When they found I had the condition, my parents were told that I wouldn’t live to my teens, which was devastating for them to hear.”

Kept alive by modern medicine, in her early 20s Kirstin - who met Liam in a local nightclub when she was 20 - was assessed for a lung transplant. She says: “I’m a positive person and the doctors often told me that positivity was a medicine in itself. I was always determined that CF wasn’t going to hold me back.

“I was put on the transplant list at 27. But, at that point, I didn’t know if I was going to survive into my 30s.”

Despite her CF, Liam only saw his future with Kirstin and, when she was in hospital in 2013 having treatment, he proposed

She says: "We didn't know what the future was going to hold and he knew that, one day, I was going to need a transplant, but he still wanted to marry me. A lot of men would have been put off, but he’s a special guy."

Kirstin waited two years for a lifesaving lung transplant - during which time she had three false calls, where lungs had been found, but at the last minute were deemed unsuitable.

“Each time was a crushing disappointment, as I didn’t know if I would get another call,” she says. "But then, finally, on the fourth occasion in November 2018, there was a call to get to the hospital and this time the transplant went ahead.

“It felt amazing afterwards when I got my new lungs and was able to breathe properly for the first time. It completely changed my life.”

As well as walking down the aisle, her new lungs have helped her to fulfill another dream to compete with her husky dogs doing dryland mushing, a dog powered sport, where the animals pull a person on a sled without snow.

She says: “To have the energy to be able to do this with my dogs was an incredible feeling of achievement.”

And last November - thanks to her lung donor, who she knows was a mum - she married Liam in front of 77 guests at the Crazy Bear Hotel in Southampton.

“My dad talked about my donor in his speech and said how amazing it was that I was here today on my wedding day,” she says.

“I don’t let my illness define me, but I’m very proud of how far I’ve come.

“I have written to my donor’s family to thank them after the transplant and I did receive a letter back from them.

“I’m now going to write and tell them about getting married and what it means to me.

“I want them to know what their mum’s lungs have done for me, as I wouldn’t be here today, doing everything that I love, if it hadn’t been for her.”