I’ll be running my first ever London Marathon to raise money to support liver transplant patients at Kings College Hospital with 'Listen', for Mum!

I’ve come close to losing my mum three times in my life. Twice, liver donation saved her. The first time was in 2006. The second, was January 2023.

Mum has a rare genetic liver disease called Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH), which is where the body doesn’t recognise the liver as its own, and ultimately, destroys it. She didn’t do anything to get this disease, it’s just one of those things. Organ donation is the only cure. My mum wouldn’t be here today without it. 

It’s a scary process to go through for both the patient and their families. That’s why 'LISTEN' is such an amazing fund, they are dedicated to supporting pre and post liver transplant patients and their families at Kings College Hospital

If you don’t already know Mum, then you won’t know quite how amazing she is. Despite everything she’s been through, she is the strongest, kindest and most positive person I know. Mum will be working directly with Listen to direct the funds where they are most needed, to help support future patients and families just like ours.

This is her story. 

In 2006, Mum had no idea she was ill. One day, she woke up and had turned yellow. She was hospitalised, diagnosed with AIH, and within a few weeks was given just a few days to live (which is very rare). The only way to save her was a liver transplant.

We were lucky. She was placed onto the ‘Super Urgent’ transplant list and on 27th December, she received her first successful liver transplant. 

Whilst the transplanted organ saved her life, it’s not a cure for her disease. With regular monitoring  and daily immunosuppressants and steroids, mum’s disease was kept at bay for an amazing extra 17 years. She’s been here, alongside my Dad, for my brother and I for every stage of our lives, and I couldn’t be more thankful. 

Then, in 2022, her body started rejecting the liver again. She was put on the chronic organ donor register. By December, Mum was hospitalised and her liver was failing, quickly. If a donor wasn’t found soon, she would die. 

The organ donor register is national and an algorithm decides the match between donor and recipient based on priority/urgency. With a second transplant, the wait is expected to be longer as the organ has more requirements to fulfil to be a perfect match. The rest of the UK is also on this list.

Finally after five months of waiting, they found a perfect match and she was taken to the operating theatre with about 15 minutes notice, on 27 January 2023. 

The transplant was a success! 

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Unfortunately, her recovery was plagued with setbacks.

These included; a new, particularly aggressive unknown illness that meant her bone marrow stopped working - her body couldn’t produce red blood cells (which carry oxygen through the body), white blood cells (help you fight illness), or enough platelets (help your blood clot). 

Her muscles began to deteriorate, she got covid, then sepsis, kidney failure and an eye even exploded! (don’t worry, her eyesight was saved and you would never guess from looking at her now)

Despite all this, Mum ALWAYS had a smile on her face and remained positive that she would keep fighting for her life.

Eventually a LOT of red blood cells and platelets were infused to encourage healing, and no one can explain why, but something in her body jumped into action. Gradually, the white and red blood cells along with the platelets started growing.  It was touch and go for weeks, but her body was working by itself!

Over the next few months, she had physio to relearn how to walk and do simple things like going to the loo! All the staff at King’s College Hospital were amazing.

Having been admitted to King’s in December 2022, she was finally discharged mid-May 2023.

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March 2025, you would never know what happened to mum, and life has returned to her ‘normal’. She’s always busy; doing online courses, started a new job, doing archery (a sport she competes in at the British Transplant Games), driving to visit family, walking the dogs every day and generally, just living!

The London Marathon is particularly special to us - for the past 16 years, Mum has been a London Marathon volunteer, she organises the Marshalls at the start of the course and is also a Time Keeper! Every year, the team of volunteers is filled with our family, friends and members of Reigate Priory Athletics Club (A club I used to run competitively for, and where Mum was first introduced to athletics officiating).

It’s a complete full circle moment and I can’t wait to run my first marathon for Mum, with her there to support me! and also to raise money for Listen!

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Listen are a wonderful fund of King’s College Hospital Charity. They provide a support network, offering accommodation, online support groups, ward mentoring rounds and one-to-one mentoring. They also run listenatkings.org which promotes advice for patients.

We will be helping Listen to provide much needed support to the liver wards too. Using mum’s first hand experience, we are building a list of essential items.

Your money could go towards:

• £350 - This would provide a wheelchair for the ward. We’d like to provide at least 2 more. When mum was able, she loved people taking her out in a wheelchair, be it to the park next door or just along the corridors. But, the ward wheelchair was old, huge, and really difficult to push, and there was only one! (often shared with up to 15 other people)

• £60 - A small, but important item, a toilet raiser. Mum lost a lot of her muscle tone and doing simple things like going to the toilet were near impossible without a toilet riser or other device. Again, just one on the ward and had to be shared amongst a whole ward. 

• £50 - This would provide one fan per a room in Todd ward (where Mum mostly was). Todd is an old ward, and does not have air-con. In the summer it is stiflingly hot, and this is the most asked for item. We’d like to provide one for all 15 rooms.

• The ‘Listen Lodges’ accommodation is a big part of where the funds go at LISTEN and always needs support. They are literally minutes away from King’s. It’s so important to have this for families who have travelled to see their loved one’s, especially in a life or death situation.  Mum’s family stayed here when they visited from Lancashire! 

• £300 would provide 1 new mattress for the Listen Lodges. We’d love to be able to provide a new one for all 10 beds.

• There is also a ‘Listen Lodge’ flat where patients being assessed for transplant can stay if well enough, and these are single rooms with shower & wc, with shared kitchen. Listen prides itself on making these as much of a home-to-home, as possible.

Mum will be having meetings over the coming months to discuss more ways the money can go to use, so I will keep updating you here! 

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Today, on Mum’s 1 year ‘Liverversary’ we are thankful to the person that sadly lost their life, which gave Mum another chance to live hers. Every donor can save 8 lives and enhance over 75 more. 

I also couldn’t finish writing this without also mentioning how my Dad, my brother Alex and my Mum’s good friend Judy who made sure to visit Mum almost every day during her 6 months in hospital. We’ve seen first hand how the money would go to amazing use. 

Every penny counts and will go directly to supporting others, like Mum and our family. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I’ll be eternally grateful for anything you can spare. Can’t wait to see you all there on the 27th April!