Rutland siblings with rare genetic condition to make history at Transplant Games

Two children from Rutland born with an extremely rare genetic condition will make history when they compete at the Transplant Games in July.

Milo and Wren Rhodes were both born with PFIC-2, a liver condition affecting one in every 150,000 children, and needed life-saving liver transplants at King's College Hospital.

They'll be the first ever siblings to compete for the hospital, and are raising money to give back to the team that's looked after them for almost a decade.

'Living life to the full'

Mum, Rachel, said her kids have come through so much and hopes their efforts will help raise awareness around rare liver diseases in children:

'Milo had cancer in the afermath of his transplant which was so scary, I didn't have chance to prepare for that. It's all been a really hard time.'

'Wren was born and then got really sick when she was four-months-old, when she got sepsis, and they realised there was a problem with her liver. I was already pregnant with Milo and I didn't find out it was genetic until two weeks before he was born.'

'People would say 'did you drink through your pregnancy?', which obviously is not the case. It was just a complete mystery because you hear a lot about babies being born with heart defects or maybe kidney problems - but you just don't hear much about childhood liver disease.'

Going through it together

Milo, who'll be competing in long-jump, said he can't wait to get started:

'It's amazing that me and Wren have both had liver transplants, and it's nice to be beside my sister to go through it all.'

'I'm very excited to do the Transplant Games, and I feel like it will benefit me, and help with relationships. I like doing jumps and parkour.'

Wren, who'll take part in ball-throwing, said 'I like basketball, and you need to shoot a lot, so it would be better for me.'

'We're hoping to raise £600 for King's College Hospital because they gave us the transplant.'

You can see Wren and Milo's fundraiser for King's College Hospital Charity here.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.

• organ transplants