On Tuesday, Emily and Oli drove up to Coventry to visit Nyila and Zulf - a very brave couple who had agreed to speak to us on camera so we can use their story for raising awareness. Fantastic stuff.
At LLTGL, we come into contact with all sorts of incredible stories, many of them joyous as we get to witness people starting an incredible new life thanks to the gift of organ donation. However sometimes sadly the endings are not as we would like. Nyila and Zulf's son, Ubaid, developed complications with the digestive system and liver when he was born. He lived in hospital for most of his life, on many treatments including TPN to keep him alive. Nyila and Zulf were told that Ubaid's liver was failing and he was put on the transplant list.
They waited and hoped, week after week, staying positive that the call would come. But 8 months later, Ubaid ran out of time. They spoke clearly and passionately about their son, and Emily talks on her blog about how emotional it was to interview a couple for whom the grief is still so raw and so new. How the couple found the strength to do that interview is beyond us, but we are so very grateful that they did. We will hopefully get the video up here soon for you to see how powerful their story is.
It is, of course, a reminder that sadly children need transplants too. Children like William, like Bethany. The concept of organ donation here becomes even more emotionally fraught; could you donate your child's organs if the time ever came? It's a consideration I am sure none of us would even like to contemplate, but there are parents all over the UK with very sick children in desperate need of a transplant who need you to take a moment to think about that question.
Thanks to Niyla and Zulf speaking out about their story, lives will be saved. It is too late for Ubaid, but his story will motivate and inspire people to sign the organ donor register to try and prevent this happening to other families. And that is a truly special legacy indeed.
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