Transplant patient plans to raise thank you funds
A woman whose sudden flu-like symptoms ended in a liver transplant just six weeks later hopes funds from a piano concert in Oban will help thank the specialist unit that saved her life.
Marie Harrower, whose husband Ken has taught piano in the town for more than 20 years, has made a remarkable recovery which she says is owed to the quick-thinking GP and other doctors, nurses and consultants who had her life in their hands.
Mrs Harrower hopes the Pianofun performance on Sunday September 30 at Oban Parish Church will also be ‘a little bit of a commemoration’ for her mystery donor.
Three years ago the wellknown Oban couple had got back from a holiday in Sorrento, Italy, and were getting ready for a week away in Yorkshire when Mrs Harrower fell ill with what felt like flu.
‘I’d been perfectly fit and healthy – walking, swimming, loving life, doing a day’s work – when I suddenly felt so unwell. I thought it was flu but went to my GP to get it checked out. He sent me to hospital straight away and, six weeks later, I’d had a liver transplant.
‘He just obviously knew something was not right. The hospital started tests straight away, which showed there was no tumour but there was something nasty. When it didn’t pass, they were quick to send me to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where I was diagnosed with hepatitis.
‘I haven’t a clue how I got it. I don’t think they ever knew what type it was but they kept me in from my very first referral appointment on September 3, told me on September 17 I needed a transplant and it happened the very next day.
‘They’d told me I might get lucky and the virus might not settle but if it didn’t, then the safest option would be to have a transplant. If I got ill with it again, it would be very dangerous so they’d signed up for the transplant just in case and casually introduced me to the transplant team and surgeons.
‘I felt so awful, I was happy to sign up. I couldn’t eat and was feeling worse and worse. I’d do whatever it took to get better again.’
Just nine days after the transplant, Mrs Harrower was discharged from the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit.
‘It was almost a record. They’d only known one person to be discharged earlier than me and that was a 21-year-old.
‘Thankfully, I’d been very fit and well before it happened and the doctors had been very keen to give me the transplant as soon as possible before I got any weaker. The unit was very pleased with the Oban management of my illness, because they had been so quick and efficient.’
She added: ‘It was major surgery but I took all the advice I was given to recover from it. No visitors, resting up, taking just gentle exercise. Ken had to fend off callers but there were cakes and meals and gifts left at the door. It was Oban at its best and contributed to me getting well again.’
There were weekly check-ups back at the unit in Edinburgh as her stamina built up again. She was soon swimming again and then, with doctors’ blessing, got back to her small physiotherapy private practice and started seeing her ‘patient’ patients again.
‘I can walk 10 miles now without a moment’s hesitation,’ she said.
While Mrs Harrower says she is ‘rejoicing’ in life, she has also grieved for the donor. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea who they were or where they came from. I do feel grief for their family.
‘I wrote a thank you letter sometime after the transplant and gave it to the unit. Some families like to receive them from recipients, others don’t, but I will write again to let them know about our piano concert. In some way it’s a little commemoration for them,’ she said.
Over the past 12 years the couple have organised Oban Pianofun to showcase Mr Harrower’s pupils’ talents and raise funds for Oban Music Society and the parish church but this year it will all be in aid of the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit.
Mr Harrower, a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, will also be giving a short recital at the event, which starts at 3pm.