Mum's donor plea after children had transplants

A woman whose two children both needed life-saving heart transplants is urging people to become organ donors.

Rachael Williams, from Bushbury in Wolverhampton, said Daniel and Lilly had the transplants within a couple of years, after both suffering dilated cardiomyopathy, a weakening of a heart muscle.

Following the operation though they are "thriving", said Williams, but that was only because "somebody made that decision for us, twice, my children are still here."

NHS Blood and Transplant is hoping to increase the number of people in the UK on the organ donor register by one million by the end of the year, following a drop-off in families consenting to donations from loved ones.

The plan, announced last week, aims to increase the number of registered donors by the end of the year from 29 to 30 million people.

Williams said Daniel, who is now 23, underwent his transplant after coming home from school, aged 12, complaining he felt unwell before quickly becoming seriously ill.

"He went in the bath," Williams said. "He came out of the bath and he had doubled in size, literally, from the waist down."

A&E doctors said initially he was suffering from a kidney disorder and he needed steroids, but he was later rushed to Birmingham Children's Hospital because of the dilated cardiomyopathy.

Lilly then underwent a transplant a few years later after becoming unwell at a birthday party.

She became really tired and could hardly stand, Williams said.

Hospital tests later revealed an issue through an ECG check and later an echo scan, confirming the same dilated cardiomyopathy.

"We had the exact same issue with her," she said.

"She was blue-lighted to Birmingham Children's and it was there she was diagnosed with the exact same condition."

Subsequently, Williams and her husband were tested for the gene that causes the condition and discovered that they both have it, she said.

"They would not have survived without the treatment," she said.

She explained that it was not an easy time after Daniel was diagnosed, because he was not responding to the medication he was being treated with.

He was then taken Great Ormond Street Hospital where they were told he had two years to live unless he had a transplant.

Williams said both transplants have given her children a vital second chance.

Being a donor, she said, was one of the most generous decisions anyone can make.

"It's a very sensitive issues and not something everybody believes in," she explained. "However, it does change lives.

"It gives families and children a second chance, gives us time with our children and more memories because somebody made that decision for us twice my children are still here."

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