The Gift Of Life

Last year, Makena Houston underwent a double lung transplant, giving her the chance to breathe properly for the first time in 26 years. But the operation came with consequences of its own. Emma Clifton talks to Makena and her mother Tracey Richardson about life with cystic fibrosis.

- Emma Clifton

What would you do to save your own life, again and operation came with again? For Makena Houston, one of the 500 New consequences of its Zealanders with cystic fibrosis, battling for survival hasn’t been a one-off dramatic event but rather a own. Emma Clifton mandatory series of monotonous tasks, every single talks to Makena and day. Physiotherapy twice a day, an hour a time. her mother Tracey Nebulisers, a breathing machine, every single day. Medication every time she has something to eat.

Makena, 26, can’t remember her mother, Tracey Richardson, sitting her with cystic fibrosis. down and having the “you have cystic fibrosis” chat with her. It was just the reality of their family life: both Makena and her older brother Cameron, 27, have cystic fibrosis – a genetic illness that is inherited when both parents carry the gene for it. It is progressive and it is incurable. “Over the course of your lifetime, it essentially scars up your lungs through continuous chest infections,” Tracey says. “Cystic fibrosis is a nasty, horrible disease that basically marches on and all you’re trying to do is slow it down.”

Makena and Tracey both live in Hawke’s Bay but on the day of The Australian Women’s Weekly’s chat they’ve just finished yet another test at Auckland Hospital, a place that has become a second home over the past two decades. Cystic fibrosis not only requires constant treatment but also constant monitoring.