I was told that the best option for me would be to have a kidney and pancreas transplant. I was very, very shocked. I had no idea that a pancreas could even be transplanted. And it sounds silly, but it wasn’t something that I thought could happen to me. I’d heard of organ donation, but I just thought that’s something that happens to other people and I was just a normal person.

Having the transplant has had a huge impact on my life. It’s hard to know where to even start to kind of talk about that. It’s given me choices, and as a healthy person, I don't think people would realise that the things I regard as choices in life are things that they wouldn’t even realise were a choice – things that people take for granted, like being able to have children, if you want them. To travel, to be able to leave the house, walk out of the house and be able to see. To be able to get on public transplant – transport – to be able to work, and just do all the things that you regard as normal, you know, because without your health, I just think you have nothing. If you’re in a bad relationship or something, you have the choice – you can leave it. But if you don’t have your health, you just have nothing.

So, to have my transplant has just given me so much. My donor was a 19 year-old boy. And I’m in contact with his mum, because I wrote to her a few months after the transplant. And she is lovely, and has been very supportive as well, and has told me that hearing from me has made her kind of know that she made the right decision in donating his organs on his behalf. And she said as well that she never imagined, when she donated his organs, that not only would he save a life, but he would help to create two other lives. Oh dear, sorry [emotional]. My older son – his middle name is actually that of my donor, so he’s kind of named in memory of him. [whispers] I’m getting upset now. Sorry.