A fortnight to live: How close transplant patient came to dying

Brisbane’s Kate Phillips knows what it’s like to stare death in the face. She was given just a few weeks to live before her phone rang at 1.15am with the best, and worst, news of her life.

Everyone knows they will die one day.

But very few are told that unless someone else dies within a few weeks, then they will.

That was the shocking reality facing Brisbane double lung and heart transplant patient Kate Phillips, who was close to the end in a ward at Prince Charles Hospital until her phone rang at 1.15am.

It was the call that saved her life.

Within hours she was on the operating table and, eight years later, the 36-year-old Toowong landscape architect is so fit she will cycle 110km this Sunday in the 2022 Tour de Brisbane.

“I was born with congenital heart disease and pulmonary hypertension (dangerously high blood pressure),’’ she said.

Kate Phillips is saddling up again to help The Common Good in this Sunday's Tour de Brisbane. Picture: Hannah Hagenson

“There were peaks and troughs over the years. When I was young they only did heart transplants and when I had a setback my mum and I would talk about options.’’

At 23, she went into pulmonary hypertensive crisis, requiring emergency surgery.

Her body continued to get weaker and six months later, during a health test at the hospital, she went into cardiac arrest.

If it hadn’t happened in hospital, she could easily have died.

One day she collapsed, waking up alone in her bathroom, and knew then only a transplant could save her.

It was a three-month wait even to be listed for a transplant, with no guarantee a match would ever come along.

“I was so sick by then, so high risk, they wouldn’t even let me go down to the hospital canteen,’’ she said.

“They gave me a couple of weeks and I had mentally prepared myself.

“It was the middle of the night, 1.15am, when the phone rang.’’

Organ transplant recipient Kate Phillips has been active raising money for The Common Good. Picture: Hannah Hagenson

Since then Ms Phillips has competed in six half marathons, a marathon and ironman events.

This year will be her second Tour de Brisbane and eighth year riding for The Common Good, which raises money for research at Prince Charles Hospital.

“There’s a lot of guilt post transplant. It’s impossible to describe how it feels to know that to survive, someone else has to pass,’’ she said.

“I often think about what the family (of her organ donor) goes through.

“But I want to prove how grateful I am every day just to be alive by living life to the full, to show they (her donor) did not pass in vain.

“Fundraising for The Common Good is a big part of that, because I know what they have done for me and I know every dollar raised at things like the Tour de Brisbane goes back to the medical research which has kept me alive.’’

Kate Phillips is determined to live life to the full after receiving a double lung and heart transplant. Picture: Hannah Hagenson

More than 5000 riders will take part in the Australian Unity Tour de Brisbane.

There are free activities for the whole family including a Story Bridge Community Ride and Free Victoria Park Fun Run.

Cyclists can tackle a range of routes including a 110km Gran Fondo, 80km, 50km and 14km rides.

Event director Mike Crawley said the 2022 Australian Unity Tour de Brisbane welcomed first timers, recreational athletes, families and professional racers.

“Our focus in 2022 is to invite every Queenslander to join us for a celebration in our city,” Mr Crawley said.

The event is supported by the Brisbane Cycling Festival, which runs until April 14.

Riders can register up until early Sunday morning.