"Research gave me a life I nearly lost"

"I was just starting my GCSEs when my body suddenly shut down. I’d been feeling unwell, and within days, doctors discovered I had Wilson’s disease – a rare genetic condition that stops your liver processing copper properly. The copper had been silently building up, to a point where it was now causing my liver to fail.

"By the time I arrived at King’s College Hospital, my liver was in full failure and my condition was deteriorating fast. I learned later that my Dad had been told I likely had just 24 hours left unless a transplant was found. I knew things were serious, but the atmosphere on the liver failure unit was calm and focused. Sir Roger Williams and his team weren’t panicked — they were composed, quietly brilliant, and deeply kind. That experience, and their total dedication to saving my life, is what eventually inspired me to go on and study medicine.

"Recovery was slow. I had to learn to walk again, talk again, eat again. Later, I was diagnosed with hepatitis B from the donor liver. Again, science saved me – thanks to pioneering research at the Roger Williams Institute of Liver Studies, I became one of the first people in the UK to successfully clear the condition.

"Today, I live in Bristol with my wife and two sons. I’ve cycled from Bristol to Oslo, taken on the Etape du Tour – 100 miles, 4,000m of ascent – and raised £1,440 for the Foundation for Liver Research. The reason I’ve been able to do any of it is because research gave me a life I nearly lost — and because of the astonishing generosity of supporters, including families who've lost loved ones and are in the midst of grief. Their kindness is something I’ll never forget.

"Liver disease is still the UK’s third biggest cause of premature death, but gets nowhere near enough attention or funding. Some people still think it’s self-inflicted. It’s not always the case.

Research doesn’t judge. It just saves lives. Today, the team Sir Roger Williams built are working on ways to regenerate the liver, new transplant techniques, and understanding why some people’s livers fail sooner than others. One day, we might actually be able to grow new livers from our own cells. It's a future that sounds strange, but it's closer than we think."

 

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