Organ Donation Week: Devon woman urges families to discuss issue
Jenni Baker-Wyatt from Modbury had a liver transplant in 2015 and says she owes her life to her donor
A woman from Devon is urging us all to talk about organ donations, saying she owes her life to the person who gave their liver.
We've spoken to 36-year-old paediatric nurse Jenni Baker-Wyatt - originally from Modbury but now lives in Bristol - to mark Organ Donation Week, who had to had to have a transplant in 2015 after being diagnosed with an auto-immune condition.
She says it's crucial we all know the preferences of our family members before they pass.
Jenni's story
"In 1999 when I was about 13 I was diagnosed with a liver condition called auto-immune hepatitis, where the immune system basically attacks the liver," she told us.
"I was put on a lot of medication at the time but I was also told the only long term treatment for this condition would be a liver transplant."
It was not until 2014, 15 years later however, when that moment came.
"I started to get really, really unwell," she said.
"I was hospitalised every few weeks with various infections and my liver just kept struggling more and more."
Seven months after being put on the transplant list, in October 2015, Jenni received the call she'd been waiting for and had the crucial transplant, but only after one failed attempt where she arrived at hospital only to hear the first donor was not suitable.
"I was sat in a hospital bed for, from sort of 6am until about 8pm, at which point they said they couldn't get it to be a good enough liver for me," Jenni said.
"Having been rushed up, blue lighted all the way up the M4 to London, I had no way of getting home.
"I was in my pyjamas, in a hospital being told to go home, so that was a little bit of a shock."
Thankfully Jenni's parents had arrived by then and were able to drive her back to Bristol on their own way home to Devon.
Recovery
In the weeks immediately after the transplant Jenni's body tried to reject its new liver twice, but since then, in her own word's Jenni's life "has got better and better".
"It took eight months to return to work, I had a phased return to work, I was doing an office job, so nothing too taxing," she said.
"It was probably a year before I felt back to a normal level of fitness, which for me was a real struggle because I just want to get out and go.
"Since then I just feel like I've gone from strength to strength."
Inspired by what she went though, Jenni went on to retrain as a nurse and now works at Southmead Hospital.
Jenni's message
Jenni tells us that as a society, we need to become more open about death and be willing to talk about it, including the good that can come from it.
"As a family, knowing that your loved one is giving somebody else the opportunity to live their life can be so rewarding," she said.
"Having read a lot around donor families, knowing that life has come out of death is a really, really rewarding thing to do, and it really can give the family some sense of relief."
In Jenni's own case, she says she was told very little about her donor.
"All you learn is their gender, their rough age and how they passed away," she said.
From that though, she was able to write a letter to her donor's family, which was passed on by nurses.
"The thing that means the most to me is the gift that they've given and the life that I've been able to live as a result of that," she told us.
"Knowing that they know that from the letter that I wrote is enough for me to kind of move on.
"From one death you can save up to eight lives with the different organs that can be donated and I can assure you that those organs are loved and cherished and that person lives their life as best they possibly can."
Talk to your families
These days every person is automatically listed as an organ donor unless you specifically opt out.
However, when a person dies medics still require final permission from their family, for organ donation to take place.
So Jenni says it is crucial that families discuss the issue.
"If they know that you would like to donate your organs, they can turn around to the medics and say, 'yes, we'd like to donate," Jenni said.
"If they don't know it becomes a much harder decision for that family to make at the most difficult time that they are going through."
"Regardless of whether we're opt in or opt out, the most important thing is to talk about it."