Sally's Story
Sally, now 41 years old, was first diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis in March 1987, when she was just 22 years old.
"I had been very fit and healthy and lived a completely normal and active life. I attended an outdoor management develop-ment course at the end of 1986 and upon my return I became very ill. Over the next three months my health quickly deteriorated and I was admitted to hospital where I went into a coma. Eventually I was rushed to London where my devastated parents were told I had approximately twelve hours to live. The doctors never gave up hope and my details were entered on the urgent transplant register. Miraculously, and against all odds, a donor organ became available and I underwent an emergency liver transplant in March 1987. Unaware of just how ill I had been, my doctors and family carefully explained that I had received a new liver. Initially, I was shocked about what had happened to me and what the future would be like. Very quickly I accepted the circumstances of my transplant and within twelve weeks I was home.
I made a full recovery and although I still have to take anti-rejection drugs and will do so for the rest of my life, without my transplant I certainly would have died all those years ago. During the last twenty years, as well as resuming a normal life and career, I have experienced many wonderful things. I have represented Great Britian and won a gold medal at the World Transplant Games, met and married my husband and seen my two beautiful nieces be born and grow up.
I am so grateful to my doctors, to the surgeons who carried out the transplant and to the family of the donor who gave me this second chance. But I know that behind all this medical skill and care were years of research that turned a theory into a treatment for someone like me. I will be forever indebted to all those people who made my liver transplant both a possibility and a success."
