The advice you need
Success at last
Antonia Andrews, 24, Newport
As I ran round the playground with my best friend Tia, then 6, I frowned as she stared at me.
‘Your eyes are yellow,’ she gasped.
When I got home, I rushed to the mirror and saw the whites of my brown eyes were tinged with a sickly yellow. ‘Mum, look,’ I cried. ‘Do you feel unwell?’ asked my mum, Annmarie, then 37.
‘No,’ I shrugged, shaking my head.
Later that day, in October 2006, Mum took me to the doctor who sent me to our local hospital for blood tests.
They confirmed I had jaundice and, days later, tests at a specialist hospital in Birmingham confirmed I had chronic liver failure.
Mum and Dad, David, then 40, were worried sick.
‘It’ll develop slowly and can be stabilised,’ a specialist reassured.
Over the next months, medicine and vitamin K helped to keep my liver functioning.
The yellow faded from my eyes and skin.
As the years went on, I lived a normal life.
Rode horses, loved singing and being in school plays.
But when I was 15, in April 2015, I felt tired and breathless.
And a huge ragged black bruise appeared on my arm, spreading up my forearm.
Mum and Dad took me to A&E.
When I said my poo was black too the doctor’s face looked grave.
‘It’s internal bleeding,’ he said.
I had so much fluid I looked heavily pregnant
I had a medical procedure under anaesthetic to seal off the bleeding and was put on the liver transplant list.
By the time I was 17 I was feeling much better.
I was taken off the list, left school and went to college, before getting a job in retail.
‘You can do anything you want,’ Dad said.
A few years later, I started getting water retention in my ankles, caused by my failing liver.
I was put on water tablets, which helped.
But at 21, I was getting so much fluid in my stomach I looked heavily pregnant.
Back on the transplant list, I reduced my working hours, started working from home.
By April 2023 I was going to
