Amazing! Liana's long wait for a kidney transplant is over

A YOUNG Yeovil woman is on the road to recovery after undergoing a long-awaited kidney transplant.

Liana Tolland, 21, had been waiting for over three years for a kidney transplant after falling seriously ill while in Uganda in 2010.

But the waiting was finally over last week when she had her transplant operation at Southmead Hospital in Bristol and she is today (Monday, February 3, 2014) all set to return home to Yeovil.

 “I feel amazing,” she told the Yeovil Press earlier today. “It’s been very emotional – I can’t believe it’s happened after waiting for three-and-a-half years.”

It was on Sunday, January 26, 2014, that Liana got the call from medical staff to say that they may have found a suitable transplant. Twenty-four hours later and Liana was undergoing the transplant operation.

Now a week on and the Yeovil College student cannot wait to get home and start her life all over again.

“I’ve got to do plenty of resting and I’m not really allowed to go out for the next few months,” she said. “But I’m already planning on what I’m going to do; I’ve got my studies to continue and I’d like to go travelling abroad.”

Although Liana fell seriously ill while in Uganda, she has said that she has no worries about going abroad again and wants to return to Africa.

But she joked: “I think my mum will want to come with me this time to keep an eye on me.”

PHOTO - TOP: Liana Tolland recovering following her kidney transplant last week at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

Liana was just like any other healthy teenager, but all that changed in October 2010. She went to Uganda for a year intending to be a volunteer teacher. But six weeks into the trip her pancreas split and started haemorrhaging to cause acute haemorrphagic pancreatitis and renal failure.

Upon her return to the UK she has experienced ten attacks of pancreatitis and remained on dialysis and has been on life support on three occasions.

“To go from a healthy teenager to depending on machines to keep me alive is a lot for anyone to handle,” Liana wrote in her blog Waiting for a Kidney.

But the wait is now over and Liana has had her transplant and it means that she does not have to endure any more kidney dialysis.

Her overjoyed mum, Di Bruce-Kidman, speaking on social networking site Facebook, said: “I am without anguish for the first time in three years.

“All is well and I am overwhelmed with gratitude. It seems very unreal that somebody can take away our pain with this gift.”

It is understood that the kidney donation came from a woman in her 30s from the London area who had died.

“I am so thankful,” said Liana. “I will be writing to the lady’s family to thank them.”

Liana’s courage and determination never left her and in May 2012 she was nominated to be one of the Olympic Torch-bearers when the Olympic Flame came through Yeovil.

PHOTO - LEFT: Olympic Torchbearer Liana Tolland in Yeovil in May 2012.

Liana has received dozens of messages from family and friends wishing her a speedy recovery and congratulating her on the transplant – even from people she does not know.

“I’m a very lucky lady and I would like to thank everyone for their support,” she said.

“I have learnt that life is worth living and even at your darkest hour there is always hope,” she wrote in her blog.

Perhaps that is a lesson for us all?

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