A woman who was on the brink of death has told how she has returned to her pole dancing day job after life-saving surgery.
Kirstie Tancock, 22, was blighted by cystic fibrosis, which meant her lungs and digestive were clogged with thick mucus, making it difficult to breathe.
And last June, just days before getting married she was rushed to hospital after she stopped breathing and turned blue.
Doctors told her she was critically ill, but following a double lung transplant Kirstie, of Honiton, Devon, is able to return to work and says she ‘can do routines I could never do before’.
She said: ‘I have been building up my strength for a while and started using the pole again about three months post-transplant.
‘Now I am nearly six months in and I am nearly back to full strength and ready to get right back into it.
‘My cardio has improved ten-fold from what it was before the transplant. I can do routines I could never do before.’
Kirstie was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth, and took up pole dancing in 2007 as a way to improve her health and fitness, before being forced to give it up after falling ill.
Despite her near-death experience Kirstie decided to through with her wedding and married her childhood sweetheart Stuart, 26, at Hornbury Mill, a 19th century corn mill in Chard, Somerset, on June 16.
She spent the night before her big day sleeping in a hospital bed, instead of the plush hotel she had booked, and was aided by nurses as she put on her wedding dress.
On a cocktail of prescribed drugs, Kirstie managed to walk to the aisle but had to remain in a wheelchair for much of the day.
In the meantime she was placed on the transplant list and doctors told her she would die unless a suitable organ donor was found.
After an anxious wait, Kirstie underwent surgery in July and had both of her lungs transplanted.
Now her incredible turnaround is complete – and she is back in the gym taking her pole dancing classes.
She added: ‘After the transplant I had to learn to walk again. The first time I went to the pole after transplant I could not get my feet off the ground and I thought I really was back to square one.
‘But I was really shocked about how quickly I was able to progress.
‘The moment I was able to perform my hardest move, which is the twisted group hand swing, I knew I had cracked it.
‘It felt amazing. I was so into pole before, that when I had to stop I wrote a blog saying goodbye to it, as it was a piece of me.
‘It really hurt that I could not do it any more. It is a big and important part of who I am.’
Alongside pole dancing Kirstie also works with the charity LiveLifeGiveLife, helping with PR, fundraising and campaign initiatives to promote organ donation.
She also has her own pole dancing fitness clothing range which she is looking to expand.
Cystic fibrosis is a common inherited disease and affects over 8,500 children and young adults in the UK.
There is no cure for the condition, but many treatments and therapies can make it easier to live with.
It is only in severe cases, when the lungs stop working properly, that a lung transplant may be recommended.