The old saying goes that “life begins at 50”, but for one north-east teacher and mum-of-two that birthday milestone signalled a very different turn of events.
Audrey Cameron’s skin started turning yellow and she struggled to keep her eyes open past 4pm.
And while doctors spent the next two years believing it was her age, stress and hormones to blame, her liver ducts were in fact being blocked by the body’s own bile.
What came next for Mrs Cameron was a “rollercoaster ride” of emotions as she was diagnosed with primary sclerosis cholangitis, put on medication and a course of regular blood tests for the next decade.
In 2017 she was referred to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for a week of tests after which she was given just months to live unless a new liver could be found.
“The problems came out of nowhere,” Mrs Cameron said.
“There was no history of family illness. My liver was being eaten by bile with no rhyme or reason to it at all.”
That Easter, she and her husband Jim, and children Lindsay, 39, and Steven, 38, began an anxious wait to see whether a donor would be found in time.
The now 63-year-old was lucky, though, and just 10 days later a successful match was found and transplanted at first call.
She added: “If I did not consent to a transplant I would be dead by Christmas 2017.
“But after 10 days on the list, at 5.30am on a very foggy May 3, I got ‘the call’.”
Thankfully it was no joke, and the secondary school headteacher was told a suitable liver had become available and was blue-lighted from her home in Auchmaud, near Toll of Birness, to Aberdeen heliport and onwards by air ambulance to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for the life-saving transplant.
She added: “After rigorous testing I was told that the liver from England was compatible and put on the emergency theatre list that day.
“There is not a day goes past that I think about my donor and her family. I am extremely grateful. I’d have never have met my granddaughter Poppy were it not for their donation.”
Mrs Cameron has since founded the NHS ARI Lina Liver fundraising and support group, which offers buddy-style help to transplant recipients and donor families, and raises money for healthcare charities.
That group has so far raised more than £5,000 for various causes.
Lockdown has forced the cancellation of the group’s biggest annual fundraiser – due to coincide with Organ Donation Week which begins next Monday.
Instead Mrs Cameron and her friends have taken their efforts virtual and are selling goods, from homemade jam to face masks, online in aid of the charities.
Anyone wishing to purchase or donate should search ‘NHS ARI Lina Liver Support Group’ on Facebook or call 01358 711384.
