Kate Green-Liver transplant
Kate from Newbury speaks about becoming a MedicAlert Member after her Liver transplant
Kate Green (34) is the sort of person who lives every day to its fullest and never lets a set back knock her down. “I believe there’s an impact on everything you do in life and I am not going to let my conditions stop me from making my mark on the world. This is why I joined MedicAlert, because it has given me the confidence back to go out and do what I love and to travel all over the UK. I am a strong believer that you are in control of your disability; your disability is not in control of you.”
It has been a tough ten years for Kate, living with a rare neurological condition, experiencing liver failure due to a severe drug reaction, which led to a liver transplant, having her gallbladder removed and being diagnosed with pancreatitis. However, Kate takes it all in her stride and with a big sense of humour. She currently attends 12 hospitals and is volunteering for 28 different companies and charities but nothing seems to phase her.
Kate currently lives on her own in Newbury and is quite a new member to MedicAlert. She has suffered from a long-term learning difficulty, which affects her hearing and vision and has had mild asthma since she was younger but didn’t felt the need to join MedicAlert until recently, when her number of conditions increased.
Around 10 years ago, Kate went to the doctor feeling generally unwell and had a number of tests done, including a liver test. When they received the results, they called her into the doctor’s surgery and demanded that she completely cut down on her alcohol intake because her liver was in really bad shape. Although Kate had just received this shocking news, she didn’t lose her sense of humour in this moment and replied: ‘Stop drinking? I haven’t even started doc’. Although Kate had never touched a drop of alcohol in her life, she was now faced with the possibility of liver failure and the reality of having to take more prescription medicine.
One morning in January 2005, Kate started to feel dizzy and then started to get episodes where her legs started to shake uncontrollably. ‘My legs would just go completely mental out of the blue and I couldn’t control it at all’. The doctors at the hospital said she was suffering from a rare neurological disorder, which they did not have a name for and because of this the doctors were not able to actually diagnose her with a condition or do much to help her with it. ‘It’s really frustrating that doctors do not know enough about my condition to have an actual name for it and because of this I can’t actually have my neurological condition on my emblem, even though it affects my everyday life. I never know when I will have a dizzy spell or how bad it will be’.
In October 2010, life was going well for Kate and she was keeping very busy with various volunteering positions and constantly travelling around the UK. ‘I am very lucky in that I am a highly motivated individual, nothing gets in my way and despite my conditions, I live my life to the full’.
During this time, Kate had a flu jab and a few weeks later was also prescribed medicine for an inner ear infection, unfortunately the combination of the two proved catastrophic for Kate’s already faltering liver. She turned a slight shade of jaundice and a month later she took a turn for the worst and she was rushed into hospital.
She woke up more than 10 days later in Kings College Hospital Intensive Care unit in London with her family gathered around her bed. They told Kate ‘not to speak because’ she had ‘wires everywhere’ and that she had just ‘received an early Christmas present’. The early Christmas present was an emergency liver transplant, which saved Kate’s life. After a gruelling recovery period and a lot of physio sessions, Kate was finally out of the hospital by February 2011.
It was after her liver transplant that Kate joined MedicAlert. She knew how important it is to make sure that in an emergency situation, people would know to be careful with general and local anaesthetics because of her transplant. Kate makes sure that her MedicAlert bracelet is with her at all times because she travels about a lot on the train for her various work dedications. These dedications include an LD Rep for the Thames Valley Police Independent Advisory Group, a Volunteer for the West Berkshire 18+ PALS, an Ambassador for the Advance Housing Shared Home Ownership Team, she is also on the West Berkshire Disability Equality Scrutiny Board.
