I basically had total liver failure, and then I woke up and had a new liver [laughs]. That was – all I knew. Yeah, no symptoms, no inkling of anything. First I knew, I was in ICU, and a doctor was talking to, I think, another doctor, and they started saying about a transplant. And I was thinking, ‘Who’s had one then?’ And then eventually I realised it was me [laughs].

The only thing I think I’ve experienced – because I think the shutting off emotionally, I don't even know if you intend to do it, you just seem to be a bit numb to everything – so when they were talking about this transplant, I was like, ‘Oh well, that’s what’s happened.’
It was only when they started saying, ‘Oh do you want to know where it’s come from and a bit about the donor,’ and I thought ‘Oh yeah, why not?’ And then when they started talking about that, you then thought ‘Wow, this is actually pretty huge.’ But the thing that got to me the most about how big a thing it was, was how quickly they’d got it, and that they had to fly it down to me. It always sounds quite dramatic, so you’re sitting there thinking ‘Oh, unless they’d told me I wouldn’t have had a clue this has happened.’ And then suddenly they’re telling you all this dramatic story behind it and you think, well, surely that only happens in movies – that doesn’t actually happen.

It’s been 3 months and a week since the operation. I feel fine. I know it’s going to sound weird but I actually feel healthier than I did before the operation [laughs]. And it is strange, and I do feel very, very tired very quickly, which I’m not used to at all, and also, you have to look out a lot more for symptoms of things going wrong. So you’re a lot more aware and I have to check my temperature every day and there’s tablets every day, and all of that is quite hard work to remember to do. That’s the biggest change – if you didn't have to take the tablets every day, or your temperature, I think you wouldn’t necessarily think about it at all, now. Well, I don’t think I would. And the biggest, obviously, sign of it is the scar, but once you’ve got a t-shirt on or something you don't even notice. But I definitely think it’s improving from when I first had it. Particularly because I couldn't move for about 4 or 5 weeks – my arms and legs were so swollen I couldn’t lift them, I couldn't lift my head off the bed.

It was all quite a dramatic thing, really, but you almost feel very detached from it. So you almost feel like you're looking in on it rather than actually it’s happening to you.