BBC DJ Bethan Elfyn's lung transplant 'emotional rollercoaster'

BBC presenter Bethan Elfyn has described how opening up about the "emotional rollercoaster" of facing a lung transplant has helped her to cope.

She regularly uses additional oxygen to help with her breathing due to having sarcoidosis which affects her lungs.

She said others had told her "they feel like they can be more honest" since she revealed her health condition online.

"The connection with people and people writing to me about their experience has definitely helped," she said.

Bethan, who has been a Radio Wales presenter, DJ and champion of Welsh music for more than two decades, said she had been living "quite normally in front of everyone but not really showing the world... that is a bit of a struggle sometimes".

"I've had the condition for a long time but it's a slow deterioration," she told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

She explained how she had taken some time off over the summer and now felt "rejuvenated a little".

Bethan said her children understood a little of her health problems as she had to go to hospital regularly.

"There's different levels of understanding," she added.

"The youngest knows I wear oxygen in the house all the time and she said to me, 'I've got a cough mummy, but I don't need oxygen'.

"It's totally normal to them. I wear the oxygen on the school run.

"I kind of like the way kids are just really upfront about things. Their friends will be like, 'what's that you are wearing?'"

She said others with the condition - which affects about one in 10,000 people in the UK - had been in touch after she revealed she needed a lung transplant during National Organ Donation Week at the end of last month.

She said hearing from other people had "helped me to face the reality", but she felt like "I'm helping other people as well".

Bethan, who was born in Bangor, Gwynedd, and grew up in Newtown, Powys, said "facing a transplant is one thing" but organ recipients have low immunity to other health issues.

She said they "live in just as much fear because the body can deny the organ at any point".

"There's so much to understand and it has been quite a minefield to go through," she said.

Bethan first started "opening up" about her condition when she wore a special lanyard issued during the height of the Covid pandemic to say she needed to maintain social distancing.

"I remember feeling that that was the first time I was kind of opening up a little bit to telling people.

"That felt like a massive thing to wear the badge," she said.

"And this is obviously another step in being far more open about it."