Lucyellen's story

Lucyellen had a live donor liver transplant from her dad when she was just 7 months old.

"It's the best thing you can do to give an organ to somebody."

Lucyellen.

Lucyellen's mum shares their liver transplant story, and also how she has since attended the British Transplant Games:

"Lucy was a perfectly pink baby but unfortunately when we went to speak to the doctor, they said 'sorry she has biliary atresia' and she's going to need a transplant.

By March, her jaundice had got a lot worse.  She was taken over for her transplant assessment very quickly because her health had deteriorated within 10 days of the first appointment.

We looked into live donors and her father said he would do it.

I could see my daughter deteriorating in front of my eyes - she could barely lift her head and her stomach was very swollen.  She wasn't going to make it to the end of August so they brought the operation forward to July. 

That probably was the scariest time of my life.  It's very overwhelming sitting in a hospital day in, day out.  In total, Lucy spent 17 weeks in hospital in Birmingham.

Since then, she has got stronger and does everything all her friends do.

I was really naive and thought that organs came along very quickly, and I was so wrong.

I would encourage everyone to be on the Organ Donor Register, because we don't need our organs when we're gone and you can help so many people. 

I had a very sick little girl and she wouldn't have survived if it hadn't of been for the generosity of her dad."