INSPIRATIONAL Stacie Pridden has finally received a life-saving heart and lung transplant, just weeks before she was told she faced losing her life.

After three years on the organ donor waiting list Stacie, 24, of Cherrytree Grove, got the call she had been waiting for and underwent the double transplant at specialist heart-lung centre Papworth Hospital, in Cambridge, this week.

Fewer than 200 heart-lung transplants are carried out in the UK each year, due to a shortage of organ donors.

But brave Stacie is now recovering well from her life-changing operation, and has already taken to Twitter to show off her battle scars and update followers on her progress.

Stacie posted a photo from her hospital bed captioned, “I’m alive guys” and giving the thumbs up, showing the extraordinary resilience that has become her trademark throughout her wait for the operation.

She told the Adver it was ‘crazy’ how well she looked so soon after the operation.

“I’m okay, in some pain but doing really well,” she said.

“There will definitely be blips but hopefully they won’t be big ones.”

She admitted that elements of her post-operation recovery will take some getting used to including no longer having to rely upon 24-hour oxygen supply.

“I keep reaching for my 02 (oxygen) tubes and realising they’re not there,” she said.

The transplant came after Stacie suffered the agony of three false alarms, when she was told organs were available only to have her hopes dashed when further tests ruled the organs unsuitable for transplant.

In February she said: “The first time I expected it, it was almost a dress rehearsal. The final one in September last year was the worst. I prepared myself to go through the operation and I felt so anxious.”

Stacie was born with three holes in her heart and endured operations each year until she was 13.

She also suffered from pulmonary hypertension – a condition where the right side of the heart is damaged making it less efficient at pumping blood around the body - and makes it very difficult to breathe.

In April 2012, Stacie was told she had just three years left to live unless a suitable donor was found. Before she got the call for the transplant, she was, by her own admission, living on borrowed time.

“I’ve stopped saying ‘when’ I get my transplant, now it’s ‘if’,” she said By May 2015, time was running out with Stacie in “manageable” heart failure.

But she used her plight to highlight the need to sign up to the organ donor register, with her story recently featured on Good Morning Britain.

She said earlier this year: “The question I would ask is how many people would accept an organ if their life was at risk or they were dying?

“Statistically you’re more likely to need an organ than be an organ donor. That needs to change.”

With the operation behind her Stacie is looking forward to seeing her twin sister Megan get married, being an auntie to sister Candice’s baby Skyler and completing studies for a history degree through the Open University.

Over 20m donors are currently on the organ donor list - nine out of ten people support organ donation but only three in ten actually sign up.

More than 10,000 people are currently waiting for an organ transplant in the UK.

To join the organ donor register visit www.organdonation.nhs.uk, or visit www.giveyourheart.co.uk.