Wife donates brain to help others
Friday, November 21, 2008, 07:00
Janita Axcell died age 60 after suffering the crippling condition since she was 47.
Janita was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2000 following the brain biopsy at the London Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Her husband Reverend Douglas Axcell, from Scunthorpe Baptist Church, told how she made the brave decision to be a brain donor in a bid to help find a cure.
He said: "She said to me at that time she hoped whatever they discovered would be of help to others who had this condition.
"She never wanted things for herself and she would give her last penny away to someone in need."
Immediately after she died earlier this month, at Stoneleigh Care Home in Gunness, she was transferred to Lincoln Hospital where the procedure to harvest her brain was undertaken.
This was then sent to the University College Hospital brain bank in London.
"I have had a letter from them thanking me for the donation and saying what a wonderful legacy my wife had left," Rev Axcell said.
Around 2,042 people in North Lincolnshire are thought to have the disease, which is an incurable, terminal, degenerative disease most commonly recognised by memory loss of recently learned facts.
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GIFT TO OTHERS: Douglas Axcell with his late wife, Janita.





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