Country music singer awaits her transplant 'miracle'

He's "never been a romantic", McAlister says, but they have been devoted to each other, despite being separated at times by his career in the army and hers on the road as a singer.

Jason has been her rock through health challenges, fertility struggles and the complicated pregnancies of her three children, and there to celebrate her triumphs including twice being nominated for Golden Guitar awards.

So it's little surprise that he has also been by McAlister's side these past few years as her kidneys have reached end-stage failure - the latest in a string of complications caused by her type 1 diabetes.

"Pretty much every complication you can get from diabetes, I'm a card-carrying member of that club," the 49-year-old said.

"He has been by my side, literally the whole time... I'm in the chair, he's in the other chair. We're in this as a team."

McAlister is on the waiting list for a kidney transplant but is philosophical about her situation, aware so many other families are facing the same battles. 

But her usually quiet husband, who "doesn't speak up very much", is fighting hard on her behalf.

"I remember when we were in the room with the last vascular surgeon who was going to make the decision about whether I was going to be able to get a transplant," she said.

"He said to the surgeon: 'You don't know her, but she's our world. Please think about that when you are making your decision on whether she's worth saving or not'.

"I was so taken aback by that."

Waiting for a transplant donor is a heart-wrenching affair as people face having to leave their bereft families behind.

There are about 1800 Australians on the organ waitlist, and 14,000 more on dialysis for kidney failure, waiting for the right match.

But while four in five Australians say they support donation, only one in three have joined the Australian Organ Donor Register.

And while 80 per cent of families will consent to donation if a loved one is registered, that number halves if they are not.

McAlister has rare perspective on helping her children deal with her journey because she was 11 when her mother Delphine received a liver transplant in 1986 that saved her life, a journey that was recorded by a Network Ten documentary.

"I grew up knowing the amazing gift that we had received. She was very ill and without the transplant she would not have survived. We were two young girls who needed their mum, so we were very blessed," McAlister said.

"We had her for 16 more years. That meant she saw us get married, both my sister and I. She got to meet three of her five grandchildren. She grabbed hold of that life - that second chance - and lived her life."

Things have come full circle with McAlister's journey set to feature in a documentary for ABC's Landline.

As a Donate Life ambassador, McAlister is keenly aware that with every successful transplant, it means another person has lost a loved one.

"A stranger is going to give me a gift, and I'll never really be able to thank them," she said.

"I'll get to see my daughters get married and my son get married and graduate high school and make those memories.

"That is the greatest gift."

India Williams will always be grateful to the person who gave her a new heart and a second chance at life.

A competitive 800 metre runner, at 17 India was months off moving to the US to study pre-medicine on an athletics scholarship.

Then one day, she collapsed mid-training session.

"I just remember waking up. I probably teased mum because she said we should go to the doctor and I was like 'surely there can't be anything wrong with me'," the 24-year-old told AAP.

"You think you're pretty invincible when you're 17."

It was quickly determined Ms Williams had a cardiac condition, but it would take five years to determine exactly what it was.

In the meantime she was fitted with defibrillators which discharged seven times over that period, each time saving her life - including once at a university ball.

"Towards the end (of university) my condition was deteriorating so that I couldn't go out with friends on the weekend," said Ms Williams, who is now a forensic accountant in Sydney.

"It's really painful. It's like being kicked in the chest by something."

After changing medical teams when she moved to Sydney in 2022, Ms Williams underwent exploratory heart surgery and was finally diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.

She was put on the list for a heart transplant in March 2023 and only had to wait six weeks before one became available.

One of the first things Ms Williams did afterwards was write a letter to the family of her donor, thanking them.

"It was just extreme gratitude. And hopefully provided some reassurance that I'm so grateful, so is my family and that I'll take every opportunity and take the best care of this heart that I can," she said.

"I was struggling to walk upstairs towards the end of 2022 and that was only deteriorating. I can't imagine where that would have placed me in five years time."

In November, just five months after her transplant, Ms Williams went on her first run.

"It was pretty tough. I think I cried a lot of times. (But) it was so exciting," she said.

"I'll never be as fast as I was ... but I'm just so grateful to be able to do those things. The level I'm doing them to doesn't really matter to me."

Australian Associated Press