THE CHALLENGE: To complete the Chillswim Coniston end to end swim (5.25 miles) on 22 June and Ullswater (7.5 miles) on 13 July.

I am raising money for the Liver Transplant Service at the QEH Birmingham. They want to purchase a home away from home for the families of pre-and post transplant patients. It is an important part of helping a patient experiencing complications, requiring long stay hospital treatment, to have a friend, partner, family, loved one near by. A home-from-home facility helps achieve that. I know from first hand experience, how the close presence of someone who cares, when everything clinically is falling apart, helps maintain the will to keep going. This is so much more difficult if one is isolated from family and friends, whilst an in-patient.

A 2-bed home-from-home, modest flat costs several hundreds of thousand of pounds in Birmingham. Every penny of that needs to be raised via charitable endeavours. The beneficiaries are from a special, select and small audience. Nationwide 726 liver transplants were performed in England between 2022-2023. Birmingham will have undertaken a sizable % of these as one of the largest centres in the UK and Europe.

(5.25 miles) on 20 June, and Ullswater end to end (7.5 miles) on 13 July

My Motivation: IAs above, I know first hand how vital it is for family to be nearby when it all goes wrong for the transplant recipient. I have supported a dear friend through two liver transplants. He lost the first transplanted liver due to complications. It started to reject after 6 months. Richard required a long stay in hospital as he was too ill to be at home. For us this happened in 2020 at the start of COVID. After 3 months in hospital he had to come home, alongside 1000's of other critically ill patients. He was re-admitted to the liver unit in May with very little time left. A 2nd miracle happened, and he received the precious gift of a 2nd liver on 9 June 2020.

Between 13 January and 20 March 2020 I benefitted from a room in Nuffield House, and a 2-week stay in a home-from-home flat owned by another transplant service. Friends took my dogs and cared for them so I could be in B'ham. The accommodation I was able to access via the QEHB charity enabled me to give Richard the support he needed to get out of bed every day and keep going. The hepatologists commented on the resilience he showed, the determination, the endurance. He, they and I know that a large part of this was my being able to be there. Day in, and day out. The clinical teams do not have the time, we as family can make to do our part in helping a loved one sustain the will to survive. Living through a rejecting liver is rubbish - its tough - Richard wanted to scratch his skin off his bilirubin levels were so high (1000+) there was no relief from this. Because I was there, I could get him off the ward, A change of scene, home cooked food. None of this would have been possible without the accommodation I was enabled to use. Nuffield House was what I would call comfortable and functional. The privacy of Karen's flat and the fact it had everything one needed was such a gift for the 2-weeks I was able to be there. I will forever be grateful for both. I am as certain as I can be that Richard would have simply slipped away without the support the accommodation allowed me to give.

My ask of you: If you are an organ recipient, someone waiting for liver transplant, or a friend, or supporter of someone waiting for transplant please support my efforts. Every £1.00 counts and is much appreciated. I have always worked on the principle of 'a lot of a little = a lot'. Lots of small gestures together will make a big difference.