Jenny Glithero, Age 38, East Lodnon, Kings Adults, Liver Transplant
On 10th May 2021, Jenny’s life changed before she consciously knew it. Within one week she went from a fit and healthy person, cycling 20 miles a day, to experiencing acute liver failure, being placed in an induced coma, and finally receiving a liver transplant, which saved her life.
Jenny’s last conscious experience was feeling unwell and seeing ‘Dad’ on her incoming calls. At this time her liver was in the final stages of failing, secreting a hormone which had swelled her brain. Jenny’s speech was distorted, and she had begun to enter a state of delirium.
Unbeknown to her, Jenny’s dad had called an ambulance. From this time, she was now completely unconscious to the fact her life had been offered to the hands of the faits. What followed was a series of serendipitous blessings which brought her to ‘the care of Kings’.
After being placed into an induced coma by the emergency team at The Royal London, Jenny was transferred to Kings College Hospital ‘s Liver Intensive Care Unit (ITU). With her metabolic rate functioning at extreme highs, she arrived at Kings with hardly any living cells in her liver remaining. Each of her organs were linked up to life support, she was placed to the top of the UK donor list overnight and her family were informed she had hours, not days to live.
The following day (10th May 2021) Jenny’s family were told she had received a donor liver. It is because of the KCH Liver Transplant team that Jenny is here, healthy and able to share her story today, and she is full of gratitude for the opportunity to live a ‘normal’ life and to get back on her bike (her happy place!).
However, Jenny’s journey to recovery has not been smooth, entailing bouts of delirium, delusion, hallucination, rounds of disassociation and seizures along with intense feelings of fear, hopelessness, despair, loneliness and deep confusion. It took time for her to piece together her fractured reality and collate the fragments of her experience into a cohesive narrative. It is thanks to her support system and professional psychotherapeutic experience (Jenny is a child psychotherapist) supporting her with tools for trauma integration, that she has been able to transform her experience from trauma to healing.
There were vital social, emotional and psychological resources which she leaned into to support her journey to trauma recovery, and it is these resources; that if utilised alongside medical intervention will make a profound difference for Transplant Patients recovery, health and well-being.
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