Johnny Cameron will compete in as many events as he can put his name to at the Australian Transplant Games next month in Newcastle, with running, swimming and cycling the big events on the schedule for him. 86289 Picture: JARROD POTTER
By JARROD POTTER
JOHNNY Cameron will compete in his first Transplant Games almost two years since he had a life-saving liver transplant at the Austin Hospital.
After contracting hepatitis A in July 2010, Cameron, 38, from Berwick, started to get liver failure, the organ weakened by an autoimmune disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), which attacks the liver, leaving him in desperate need of the transplant.
Eventually a donor liver was found and Cameron’s life started to get on the mend from August 2010.
“I had a liver transplant – had a disease and the doctors told me I had that when I as 22 and that I’d need a transplant within 10 years,” Cameron said.
“From 2009 (Cameron’s doctors) said they’d put me on the transplant waiting list and then in about June 2010 I ended work as I was getting too sick to work.”
“I got hepatitis A, the whole family got it, but that made me really sick and put me from kind of needing a liver within a year to needing one urgently and I managed to get one in August 2010.”
The stark contrast between life before his transplant and life afterwards was immediate – Cameron was back on his beloved bike within a month and feeling completely normal within 15 months after the operation.
“Beforehand about a year before I started my current job I didn’t feel myself, I was losing weight and looking yellowish for a couple of years,” Cameron said.
“In November 2009 I was feeling tired all the time and had headaches, sleeping a lot and never had any energy.
“After the transplant, pretty much by the end of September I was back running a little bit and probably by the end of October I could run five-10 kilometres and ride the bike 50km again, went back to work in the start of November.”
He just missed out on the Canberra Games in 2010, but has been in training for this year’s Games, participating in the five kilometre run, five kilometre cycle, 20km cycle, 50m and 100m freestyle swimming, 800m and 1500m running, shot put, long jump and the most strenuous event of them all… darts.
“Everyone reckons it’s good fun and it’s not too competitive,” Cameron said about his chances for snagging a couple of medals at the Games.
“A lot of the events I don’t train for, but I run and cycle and do that anyway and I’m going to start swimming a little bit as I only just decided to do swimming – the other ones I’ll just wing it,” Cameron said.
“The 5km run and the cycling I’m looking forward to the most, because I’m better at them and I love them the most.
“I don’t know what to expect, but as long as I can turn up and finish the events I’ll be happy.”
The Australian Transplant Games will be held from 29 September to 6 October in Newcastle, New South Wales.
