?
NEWS RELEASE
16 January 2004
Local Girl Celebrates Transplant Success
Rachel Curran, aged 10, of Kilkeel, County Down will reach a major milestone on 22 January when she celebrates the second anniversary of her life saving liver transplant.
Until Rachel was seven years old she appeared to be a typically healthy child, but she then started to show signs of jaundice and lethargy. Her mother Lynda took her to the doctors, and within a week Rachel was at Diana Princess of Wales Children?s Hospital, Birmingham, after being diagnosed with acute liver failure. Her mother Lynda explained: "The whole family was shocked. It came totally out of the blue. Up until two weeks before her diagnosis Rachel was a healthy child as far as I was aware and then suddenly we were told she had acute liver failure and would need to go to Birmingham for a liver transplant, it was a bolt from the blue."
Lynda says that the family were helped greatly by the Children's Liver Disease Foundation, a unique national charity that fights liver disease in children and young people. Lynda continued: "We first heard about CLDF through the hospital, where we met Sue Davis, its family support officer. The Foundation has been a wonderful support and provided us with literature on a variety of aspects of transplantation, when we needed it most. We?ve also found it reassuring to know that the Foundation is at the end of the phone, if we need it."
Rachel is doing extremely well since her transplant and in January 2003 won an award for her progress. Lynda explained: "Last year Rachel went on a ski trip to Bormio, Italy which was organised by the hospital for transplant patients. I was so proud when she won a cup for her progress since transplantation. It was amazing to think that 12 months before the trip she could hardly get up from the chair, and there she was skiing."
Rachel and friend Holly Gordon recently organised a quiz and raised ?85 for CLDF. Catherine Arkley, chief executive of CLDF said: "It is great that Rachel is doing so well. At least two children a day are diagnosed with liver disease. Through funding research CLDF hopes to discover why these children get liver disease. It is only through the help and efforts of our supporters that we can continue to fund research to help us find out why children like Rachel have liver disease and provide support for families like the Curran?s."
If you would like to support CLDF or would like more information on their work please call 0121 212 3839 or e-mail info@childliverdisease.org
ENDS
If you require more information on this story or the work of the Foundation please contact Rebecca O?Connor on 0121 212?6012 or e-mail rebeccaOC@childliverdisease.org
