Our Lives
We had no idea our little girl was in grave danger. Then a pint-sized hero leapt in.
My six-year-old daughter Ava balanced a long bamboo stick between two plant pots.
‘The obstacle course is ready!’ she announced to her little sister Sylvie, three.
Ava then told Sylvie that she had to jump over the bamboo stick, crawl under a picnic rug, and run round the garden to finish the course!
Sylvie adored Ava, who’d spend hours coming up with games for them to play.
Now Ava could read, she would sit for ages reading her favourite Peter Rabbit story to her on repeat. They shared a bunk bed too, and were inseparable.
Just a few days later, I picked Sylvie up from nursery and noticed she was a bit quiet and sleepy. But she perked up when she got home and went out in the garden to play with Ava.
Five minutes later Ava came hurtling into the kitchen.
‘Sylvie’s eyes have gone yellow!’ she said, alarmed. I rushed outside. Sylvie was wearing sunglasses but when I lifted them up, sure enough the whites of her eyes had a buttery tinge.
I called my husband Mike over to check.
‘We’d better call the GP,’ he said. They advised taking Sylvie to our local A&E.
I assumed we’d be sent home pretty quickly, so Mike stayed home with Ava. But once we were there, doctors wanted to run blood tests.
They worried the yellowing of her eyeballs meant there was a problem with her liver, so they kept Sylvie in for more tests.
Mike arrived with Ava who had something for her sister.
‘I brought Peter Rabbit to look after you,’ she told Sylvie, handing over her favourite cuddly toy.
However, despite days of tests, doctors still couldn’t work out what was wrong, so she was transferred to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for a liver biopsy.
As we waited for the results, Sylvie became sleepy and her speech was confused. It was really worrying.
Eventually, while Ava was at school, a doctor came to see us with news.
‘Sylvie has liver failure,’ she said. ‘She’ll need a liver transplant as soon as possible.’
‘What?’ I gasped, shocked.
Mike and I hugged as she explained that Sylvie’s liver was no longer functioning and was flooding her little body with toxins. They had no idea what had caused it.
‘If we can’t find an organ donor in the next week, we may have to place her in a coma until we can,’ the doctor said.
But she warned that if that happened, there were no guarantees she’d ever recover.
I just sobbed. It didn’t seem real.
Then it hit me.
‘If Ava hadn’t spotted Sylvie’s yellow eyes, we might not have realised she was poorly until it was too late,’ I said.
She would’ve had les
