“I thought I’d never be able to go out for a walk again” - Woman who had two liver transplants in five days walks 1,000 miles for QEHB Charity.
After a period of ill health, Valerie Pinfold, 50, from Chipping Norton, was diagnosed with Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC), a disease where the immune system attacks the bile ducts in the liver causing a build-up of scar tissue, dramatically reducing liver function.
After eight years Valerie’s condition rapidly deteriorated. By January 2015 she was on the transplant list for a new liver. Valerie was extremely fortunate as just one month later she received the call telling her that a liver had been found and that she needed to make her way to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham as soon as possible.
“You live your life waiting for the call, but when I got it, although I had a bag packed ready, it was still a shock” Valerie explained. In the early hours of the morning Valerie underwent surgery, but in a cruel twist of fate, the liver failed. The desperate search for a new liver began. Valerie’s daughters, Robyn, 25, and Leah, 23 were told that the doctors had just 72 hours to find a suitable liver. Just before the 72 hours were up, thankfully a liver was found.
Throughout this traumatic period between the two liver transplants Valerie had to be placed in an induced coma, meaning she had no idea of the danger she was in. Whilst the second transplant was deemed a success, due to the sheer amount of blood that she had lost, Valerie’s life was once again hanging by a thread.
Leah said: “The doctors told my sister and I that the next few hours were crucial. We were asked to make a very difficult decision as to whether to let our mum have a tube put into her throat to help her to breathe, but to our great relief, she woke up herself just in time so we didn't have to make that decision.”
Valerie explained “When I came to, I didn’t believe the doctors at first when they told me that I’d had two liver transplants. I can remember thinking that maybe I was in hospital because I had fallen down the stairs.”
Valerie began to recover, but unfortunately in the days following the operation she developed pneumonia and was forced to return to Intensive Care. The rehabilitation process was long and difficult for Valerie, especially after having been bed-bound for such a long time. The strength she should have had as a fit and healthy fifty year old had been lost to the cruel illness.
“I think one of the difficult moments for me was being pushed around by my daughters in a wheelchair in the hospital, I looked around at everyone else rushing around and thought to myself “I’ll never be able to do that again”
But Valerie Pinfold had far from given up, as two years later she set herself the challenge of walking 1,000 miles in 2017, and now, Valerie has walked over 1,000 miles and raised a staggering £1,030 for the Liver Unit and Critical Care Unit.
