Dan's liver transplant

Hey all

Really sorry for the huge gap. A lot has been going on.

Firstly I ended up back in hospital in September with an itch, I had a blockage in my billory tree. They did an ECRP which is a camera down my throat into my stomach and they made an incision to put a stent into the block vein to widen it. At the same time they discovered that my kidneys were not working and so they installed a chest line and I was having dialysis twice a week. This meant I was in hospital for all of September.

Everything was progressing fine and I had an echo cardiogram in December which showed that the stent had worked so the booked me in and removed it.

We had a lovely stress free Christmas with family and friends and things were looking good until I developed a chest infection, this resulted in me not being able to breathe and after being told I looked yellow we called an ambulance at 5am on a Sunday morning.

First to Watford there they put me on oxygen and then transferred to the royal free. They found out that the bile duct had blocked again and that I had pneumonia. I had excess fluid on my chest and around my heart.

Cue buckets of IV fluids and antibiotics and increased dialysis to three times a week. Another ERCP was done and a bigger, stronger stent was fitted. After a month in the royal free I was given the all clear and sent home.

That was 6 weeks ago and it’s only this last week that I’ve really started feeling better. My liver is good, the fluid around my heart and chest has gone thanks to increased dialysis. My kidneys are knackered and now I’m waiting to see a specialist about a kidney transplant. In the meantime I’ve been referred for a fistula in my arm so that I can have dialysis that way and have the chest line removed. This is safer and reduces chance of infection etc.

So again you things are looking up! Keep your fingers crossed!