Rules about organ donation may change, meaning everyone will be a potential donor unless they choose not to be.

Before you make up your mind, read about Diana Hubbard.

Diana Hubbard doesn't want to live in isolation, not that you would blame her if she did.

Catching a simple, common cold is seriously bad news for her as it can take her up to six months to fully recover.

"But you can't be cut off from normal life like that," stressed Mrs Hubbard. "You can't live in a bubble, and I don't want to live in a bubble."

For her, leading as normal a life as possible is worth the risk of possibly meeting someone who unwittingly gives her a cold.

It is the same as her reaction to the phone ringing at her home in Shelley Road, Colchester. Since September, Mrs Hubbard, 48, has been on list for a lung transplant. She's done the "is it, isn't it?" scenario every time the phone rings, but not any more.

"We did feel on standby at first, but not now. I try to forget about it. You can't live like that," she added.

Her attitude is that, when the call comes saying there is a suitable donor, so be it, but being on the transplant list cannot dominate her life.

Mrs Hubbard is a true fighter. Cystic fibrosis has ravaged her lungs and she is in desperate need of a double lung transplant.

With her lungs functioning at only 20 per cent capacity, she relies on a near-constant supply of oxygen, courtesy of a 30ft pipe which attaches to her nose and snakes all the way back to an oxygen concentration machine in her back room. At night she uses a ventilator to control her carbon dioxide levels.

When she's out shopping, she uses a small portable oxygen tank which she pulls along on a special trolley because it is so heavy. Before the trolley, she had to rely on someone carrying it for her.

"I had to go where they wanted to go. Now I can wander off by myself," she laughed.

A transplant offers a real chance of Mrs Hubbard leading a better life, but it is not without its drawbacks.

Her husband Richard explained: "I have mixed feelings. On the one hand it offers a positive lifeline but, on the other hand, there are risks and it is not a simple solution at all. It might work or it might go wrong."

When Mrs Hubbard was told she was being put on the organ transplant list, the enormity of her poor health hit her like a sledgehammer.

"It was traumatic," she remembered. "I held my hands up in horror. I didn't think I was that ill."

Despite having cystic fibrosis - a disease which affects the internal organs by clogging them with thick mucus - Mrs Hubbard worked until about 18 months ago.

She has always been determined the disease would affect her life as little as possible and is proud she has "never let it bed-bound me" despite numerous infections.

That aside, she always has to be within 3-4 hours of Harefield Hospital in Middlesex, where she will have her operation when a donor is found, is not allowed to fly and isn't strong enough to take the family labrador, Chief, out for a walk. When she removed her oxygen supply for the photograph she became noticeably breathless after a few minutes.

The Hubbards find their Christian faith helps with their situation, although their 17-year-old son, Shaun, finds her condition difficult to cope with.

Mrs Hubbard understands how traumatic it can be for people to make a decision about a loved one's organs when they die.

"They may have lost a loved one but, hopefully, someone might gain life. It can all help the grieving process."

This week, Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson claimed the only way to combat the transplant "crisis" was to treat all people as organ donors unless they opted out.

However, before any change is made, putting yourself on the organ donor register is one way of avoiding relatives having to make such a difficult decision.

Nobody wants to talk about their own demise, but having the chance of giving someone the gift of life must be more than worth it.

More than 9,000 people need an organ transplant in the UK.

Last year, 3,086 Britons had transplants.

People can opt for any part of their body to be transplanted or for specific organs only In north Essex, there are 31 people awaiting a transplant, and last year 46 people had an organ transplant.

To join the NHS Donor Register call 0845 60 60 400 or visit uktransplant.org.uk 14.4 million people (1 in 4 of the population) are registered on the Organ Donor Register.