Meadhbh fights back to health after lifesaving liver transplant
The schoolgirl was flown to Britain on the Government’s Learjet for the complex, 13-hour operation last September, two months after a previous attempt to fly her to London failed due to a breakdown in communications.
Less than a year ago, the teenager from Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, was spending all her time in pyjamas painfully moving from her bed to the couch as she waited for her organ transplant.
In the TV3 special, The Fight of My Life, the 15-year-old said she has had nowhere near her fill of exercise sessions since her discharge from hospital last winter.
“I hadn’t any interest before but now I enjoy it loads. I am out jogging but I’d love to be able to run a 5km, that would be a great goal.
“Zumba dancing, jogging, and boxing are among my favourites.”
The teenager said her life now was a world away from the chronic ill health she had endured for most of her young years.
“It was just horrible. I had so much pain, so much tiredness, I couldn’t do anything. I had no interest in anything, it was horrible. I spent all day in my pyjamas watching TV or lying in bed.”
Meadhbh, who was the Irish paediatric patient who spent the longest time ever on a transplant list, said she felt like a new person.
“One year on, life is absolutely brilliant. You can do anything because once you have no pain you can do anything. I have loads of energy.”
She said she can’t wait to start concentrating on her studies once again as she prepares to return to complete her Junior Certificate next year.
“I’m actually looking forward to it. I don’t mind, they’re just exams.
“I can’t wait to be like a normal teenager next year and just go to school, hang out with my friends and have the craic.”
Her father, Joe McGivern, said he can’t believe his daughter manages three intense workouts a week with a personal trainer.
“Before, a 10-minute walk and you’d see a dark cloud coming over Meadhbh. Her temperature would rise, her glands swell and she would have no energy. Now she exercises vigorously for one hour three times a week and it doesn’t take a flinch out of her.”
He said her transformation began almost immediately after the operation by surgeons in King’s College Hospital in London.
“It was a radical change in a short period of time. The biggest change that we saw in her was her pain lessening all the time until eventually, within a few weeks, it was completely gone.
“She was a different child. It was just as if a light switch had been put on again.”
Along with other parents of children with liver disease, the McGiverns have launched Children’s Liver Disease Ireland, which aims to provide support and information to other families.
* Midweek: The Fight of my life, Meadhbh McGivern, is broadcast tonight at 10pm on TV3.
