"My best friend saved my son's life - we consider her a second mum"
A baby in need of a liver transplant has had his life saved by his mother's best friend - and now she considers her a "second mum" to the tot who is thriving.
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00:00 I'm Lauren, this is Tommy, I'm Tommy's mum and this is Kaylee, my best friend and also Tommy's donor.
00:06 They were able to confirm that Tommy did have neonatal haemochromatosis, which is extremely rare.
00:12 And it could go either one of two ways, that his liver would regenerate and fix itself basically,
00:20 or that he would need a liver transplant.
00:22 What's that then?
00:23 Oh no, Captain Calamari!
00:27 Clever boy!
00:29 Fast forward a couple of weeks, he wasn't really getting any better.
00:33 He was extremely, extremely jaundiced at this point.
00:38 Myself and Tommy's dad Calum sat down and said that he did need a liver transplant.
00:46 And obviously no parent wants to hear that, especially at such a young age.
00:50 But straight away me and Calum done a media appeal.
00:54 And overnight here the liver coordinators had over 200 applicants for donors all across the world.
01:02 Who's this one? Who's this one?
01:08 Oh!
01:10 Kaylee didn't initially put herself forward purely for the fact that she has Gilbert's Syndrome.
01:21 I hope you don't mind me saying that.
01:23 She has Gilbert's, so she didn't think she was going to be a suitable match.
01:27 But I remember ringing her one day when we got told Tommy's chances of survival in absolute tears.
01:35 You know, because I did think I was going to lose him.
01:38 And that night, I didn't even know, but that night she stayed up all night researching
01:48 to see if people with Gilbert's Syndrome could be a donor.
01:51 It was worse for me to think that I couldn't be a donor when I knew I had Gilbert's Syndrome
01:56 to when I found out that actually it was an option,
01:58 because I was never prepared to let anything happen to Tommy if I could do anything about it.
02:03 It was really hard because I couldn't tell Lauren and Calum at that point.
02:07 Obviously I wanted to give them some hope, but didn't want to get their hopes up too much.
02:11 My transplant coordinator got a phone call to say that Tommy had declined.
02:15 And it was then that all systems go. They were like, "We're just going to do everything now."
02:20 And as soon as I put myself forward, I knew it would be me.
02:24 I remember begging them as I was being put under the anaesthetic, "Just get Tommy through this."
02:29 It's in.
02:30 [Squeaking]
02:33 She got you.
02:35 [Squeaking]
02:37 Love it.
02:38 It was in December.
02:41 We got told on Thursday that it would be, you know, we have got a donor.
02:46 It's Kaylee, and it was the night before his operation.
02:51 I was able to walk Kaylee down to surgery in the morning.
02:54 It was the first thing. I think it was probably about 8 o'clock.
02:56 8 o'clock in the morning.
02:57 8 o'clock in the morning.
02:59 So I was able to walk her down.
03:01 I think we held hands the whole way, didn't we?
03:03 Yeah, we did.
03:05 And that was hard because she's got two children.
03:12 She's got a family, you know.
03:14 And she was putting herself at risk, really, to save my little boy.
03:21 And Tommy was in theatre for about 8 hours.
03:24 It was very, very, very touch and go at times.
03:26 His blood pressure was all over the place.
03:28 He lost, obviously, loads of blood.
03:30 They said it was a perfect match.
03:32 They prepared us that Tommy may have to come back open
03:36 because he's having an adult liver and he was 6 weeks old and he was a small baby anyway.
03:41 But he was closed, so he didn't have to have any mesh or anything.
03:46 He was completely closed.
03:48 Yeah, and now fast forward on.
03:50 You're 10 months now and you're doing so well, aren't you?
03:53 I mean, yeah, the hospital seemed very happy with him now.
03:58 Kaylee has her checks, don't you?
04:00 Yeah.
04:01 You need a check-up?
04:02 Yeah, all doing fine. Absolutely fine.
04:03 [Alarm beeping]
04:05 Oh!
04:07 [Alarm beeping]
04:09 I'm sure she won't mind me saying that when we both met each other,
04:12 we thought we didn't like each other.
04:14 Once we got put in the same team and started training together,
04:16 we became really, really good friends really quickly.
04:19 And it was so meant to be.
04:22 She's always been there for me.
04:24 Hopefully I've always been there for her.
04:26 And now we've got a bond that most people could never have, really.
04:30 [Coughing]
04:33 [Laughter]