Ali

JW: OK, just so that I can get a level…
AW: …do a testing, testing, 1, 2, 3? [laughs] Sorry!
JW: That’s exactly what I want to do, so maybe just say your name and testing, testing …
AW: Ali Winham, testing, testing, 1 ,2, 3. [laughs] Sorry – I should giggle! No, I won’t. Ali Winham, testing, testing? Testing?

Yeah well, I thought I’d do my nails, because it’s monotonous in hospital, so you think, oh, it’ll give you something to do. And it takes a long time. So, I’ve done all my hand nails and I want to do my toe nails, and I’ve got them all prepared, and I thought I won’t paint them because I was due to go for an MIR scan. And I thought if I paint them, I guarantee they’ll call me, and I’ll ruin them by putting my slippers on … and they never came for me. [laughs] I wasn’t a happy bunny! So maybe today I’ll go for it! And hopefully they’ll look nice afterwards. And they’ll be all complete.

Well, I think it started probably about probably 5 or 6 years ago. I just went to my doctor with pains in my abdomen. Didn’t really put it down to much, and she said ‘oh’, she could feel an enlarged liver. Didn’t really know what that entailed, so she sent me to a consultant. And that was it, then – he gave me approximately 3 years to live, then. I know everyone automatically associates it with alcohol, but mine … they think it started from a very early age, but obviously it never got picked up. No minerals, vitamins, nothing in my system, in my body, no folic acid, not a trace of anything in my blood results, and they think that’s what’s caused the liver to start malfunctioning. And they reckon it started probably quite a few years before that, for it to get to the stage of how enlarged it was. And then from there, obviously, it just progressively gets worse and worse.

So I outlived the 3 years. I started eating what they told me I should eat, etc, to try and keep the malnutrition in. They put me on medication, which I’m still on now. But obviously as the liver starts to fail, so things like your immune system goes right downhill, so you tend to catch everything. And then there’s various things that can come with it, you know, you can have bouts of, you know, forgetting things, you know. I had a stroke while I was in hospital due to the liver, which caused me to have neuropathy – severe neuropathy – which at the time led me to not – I was unable to feed myself, bathe myself, wash myself, go to the toilet myself. I was in a wheelchair permanently, I couldn't walk. But I fought that and fought that. It took just over a year, maybe a year and a half. And I’m basically, touch wood, a normal person functioning now.