A YOUNG mum-of-two has been given new hope that she will see her children grow up.

Natalie Kerr, aged 28, is battling the life-threatening illness, idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, which causes high pressure in the arteries of the lungs, eventually leading to heart failure.

Last year she was given just two years to live as her condition deteriorated, but family, friends and supporters rallied round to raise £40,000 for a potentially lifesaving stem cell transplant.

Miss Kerr, who has a son, Brandon, aged seven, and daughter, Isabelle, aged two, travelled to Miami and the Dominican Republic for the treatment in November.

After three months doctors were unable to tell her if the transplant was making a difference, saying there might be signs after another three months.

She then suffered a setback, with a spell in hospital in March, when the line into her stomach, which delivers drugs 24 hours-aday, became infected.

Now the former Royal Bolton Hospital nurse has had a check-up, which revealed a slight improvement, and her condition has remained stable since.

Miss Kerr, who lives in Adlington, said: “The doctors found it hard to say if the transplant was working in February. Now they are really pleased with how I’m doing but still don’t really know if it’s the stem cell treatment. But I am doing well, there are no problems so I am positive.”

The only way medics could determine the effect of the stem cell transplant would be to do a lung biopsy, which is too dangerous in Miss Kerr’s condition.

She said: “The doctors didn’t say it would cure me, they said it could reverse my condition a bit and stabilise it. Or nothing might happen and I would continue to deteriorate.

“I am positive that I have been given more time, hopefully up to 10 years. I am so pleased I have had the stem cell transplant, without it I’m sure I’d be going downhill. Now I feel stronger, I feel well, and I am thinking about the future.”

Miss Kerr is looking forward to a family holiday and spending the summer holidays with her children.

She plans to look into doing voluntary work and fundraising for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, when Isabelle starts nursery in September.