Robyn's second chance

At 27, Robyn was busy living her life.

She loved cycling. She loved swimming. She was studying for her master’s degree and planning her future. And she’d never drunk alcohol.

In March 2021, she went to her GP feeling more tired than usual. A routine blood test followed, and at 4am the next morning, her phone rang.

She was told to go straight to A&E.

After a fortnight of tests, doctors discovered her liver was already cirrhotic. They said she’d been living with autoimmune hepatitis for years, her body quietly adapting as things slowly worsened. With no prior warning and no obvious symptoms, Robyn had no idea.

Then everything sped up.

Medication began. And instead of improving, Robyn became desperately ill. In May she experienced three episodes of hepatic encephalopathy (HE). Each time, she’d go to bed and wake up days later in hospital, with no memory of what had happened.

“It was like time had been stolen,” she says. “I always tell people I did liver disease on fast mode.” 

Robyn at 27 – active, ambitious, and with no idea she was living with liver disease

The news that changed everything

After a third episode of HE, Robyn was placed on the transplant waiting list at King’s College Hospital.

And five days later, a liver became available.

She was already on the ward when the team told her the news. But unfortunately, the donor liver was slightly too big for her frame. Surgeons couldn’t fully close her abdominal wall. She tried to recover, but without core muscles there was only so far she could get.

Another operation was planned. But during that surgery, Robyn had anaphylaxis. It was abandoned.

A third attempt followed months later. This time the repair went ahead, but hours afterwards Robyn’s heart went into a dangerous rhythm. She needed emergency treatment, then developed pneumonia and sepsis. She spent a week in a coma, in intensive care.

Having finally received the gift that saved her life, Robyn felt as though recovery kept slipping through her fingers.

“I felt like I was always going backwards,” she remembers. But extraordinarily, she kept going. And within a month, she was out of hospital.

Against the odds, Robyn left hospital and began the long road back to strength

Finding her way forward

Today, Robyn has to live carefully. She takes medication, and isn’t able to cycle and swim as much as she used to.

But she still lives a full, rich life. She went back to university to finish her master’s degree, gaining a distinction. And she trained further, now working as a psychotherapist, supporting other people through their darkest moments.

“The way I think about it,” she says, “is my donor allowed me to still be here. So when I help someone else, that gift travels beyond me.”

Liver disease can happen to anyone

Robyn had never drunk alcohol. Not a little. None. She was young, active, and focused on the future. And liver disease had never entered her mind.

“I think people assume it happens to someone else,” she says. “I’m proof it can be you.” 

Research is how we challenge those assumptions. It is how we spot danger earlier, treat people better, and make survival possible when the worst happens.

It's why a woman who lost a week of her life to a coma could wake up to a future. And it’s why your support is so vital.

Transplants like Robyn’s rely on surgical advances, better matching, better preservation, and better understanding of how to keep someone alive and well afterwards. Every step is funded by the kind supporters who decide to help.

Your support could be vital

When Robyn thinks about supporters, she doesn’t see distant donors. She sees people standing quietly behind the surgeons, the nurses, and the scientists. People pushing the whole system forward.

“If you help research,” she says, “you are saving lives.”

Last year alone, hundreds of people like Robyn were given a second chance through a liver transplant. Research is how we can give more families the phone call that changes everything.

Will you back the research that makes survival stories like Robyn’s possible? Click here to give today.

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