BRITISH girl Leanne Nicholson is in many ways like any other 18-year-old. Slim, blonde, pretty, and planning a career as a youth worker, she is devoted to her pony Merrylegs and her fluffy Pomeranian dog Timothy.

But she is also a medical miracle, and lucky to be alive.

In her short life Leanne has had no fewer than three hearts-the one she was born with and not one, but two transplanted hearts.

Today, she is recovering at her home in Choppington, in Northumberland, from her second heart transplant three months ago.

"To receive a second heart transplant is a million-to-one chance as there is such a shortage of donor organs,"says Leanne.

Until the age of 12, Leanne was a normal, healthy child.

"She used to be outside doing handstands and riding ponies all the time. She was the picture of health,?± says her mother Helen, 40, a youth worker.

But in April 2002 a virus-unnamed and unknown-swept through her body, attacking the muscle tissue of her heart.

"At first we thought Leanne had flu,"says her father Robert, also 40, who runs a cleaning company.

Leanne was diagnosed with severe cardiomyopathy, literally"heart muscle disease."

Her heart was so damaged by the virus-which by then had passed out of her system-that the doctors said it was as though she'd suffered three major heart attacks.

"The next morning she was no better and the prospect of a heart transplant was mentioned to us for the first time,"says Helen.

The Nicholsons watched, waited and prayed in the hospital chapel that a suitable match would be found.

Within 48 hours, they received positive news. A possible heart was available.

All the Nicholsons know is that the heart came from a young woman who had died of a head injury.

The transplant was that morning and, to everyone's huge relief, it was a success. After several weeks of recovery, at first in a high-dependency ward, Leanne went home.

But after just 14 months, Leanne went into chronic rejection. Her body began to recognize the heart as an alien tissue and started to attack it so powerfully that not even the strongest immuno-suppressive drugs worked.

"I became breathless again and felt tired and ill,"says Leanne.

In January this year, shortly after her 18th birthday, Leanne again went into complete heart failure.

"I felt really tired and found it hard to concentrate and reply to questions,"she recalls.

Doctors told Helen and Robert, once again, that a transplant was the only option. Without it Leanne had, at best, just 30 days to live.

And several days later, a heart was found, from a 35-year-old man from London who had died in a car accident."Apparently he was a very fit and healthy young man, the doctors told us," says Robert.

The surgery was a success, and within a month Leanne was home with her family.

Leanne is now making a steady recovery and says she has not felt so well in years.

The average survival rate for heart transplant patients is 10 years, with many living for 20 years or more, and so her future is looking brighter than it has for a very long time.

(SD-Agencies)