Emily Thackray is 23 years old. She describes herself as small, blonde, pink and smiley. She was born with the genetically inherited life-threatening disease Cystic Fibrosis. In her short (yet very full) life so far, Emily has overcome many insurmountable obstacles and battled through some extremely difficult times.

In the last stages of the disease, doctors determined that she needed a double lung transplant within 12 months in order to survive, providing her at the same time with the bleak odds of a 50% chance of receiving one in time.

Emily enjoys talking, laughing, reading, writing and talking some more. She read Drama at Bristol University and graduated with a BA Hons in 2005. Her passion is to educate and spread the word about Cystic Fibrosis and Transplantation, in an attempt to improve things for other sufferers.




On her talks

You are a truly remarkable person – to be able to stand up and talk to a group of strangers (for 1½ hours) unprompted, only a few months after your transplant and with such energy, enthusiasm and wonderful sense of humour it’s just amazing.