50 Ways to Leave your Liver

I received my first transplant call within 5 days of my blood tests suddenly deteriorating. I received my second call within 3 days of being reactivated on the list having got over covid. While there was no way of knowing when the super whizzy liver transplant algorithm would next summon me to London,  our expectation was for something similarly speedy. We ended up waiting 10 days- not long in the grand scheme of things but a seeming eternity when you are grappling with not knowing how long you can survive without the operation and you're praying/pleading with God each night that the call would come. For every 10 of us who get to have a transplant, there is 1 who doesn't survive long enough to hear their phone ring with that call from the transplant coordinators (based on the latest figures I could find). The wait for the 3rd call was really agonising. While there are many other variables that determine who gets offered each organ that is donated, the urgency of need of transpl...

So much has happened since 7th June when I had my first call to go to the Royal Free for a transplant. I'm going to write a few posts covering some of the key events of the last couple of months. And we start with my second call to go for the transplant.... Having been unable to have the transplant operation on the 7th June due to testing positive for covid, I was essentially paused on the transplant list until such time as I had had 2 negative PCR tests spaced 48 hours apart. I got home in the evening on 8th June. I spiked a temperature that night, said a quick "hello" and "goodbye" to the kids in the morning and was back to the John Radcliffe hospital. More blood tests and we added "C diff" to the "covid" in my list of current issues. Two more nights in hospital and then a week of positive PCR test results. After an "Indeterminate" PCR test, I am reactivated on the transplant waiting list on 23rd June. 25th June, 1am the phone rin...