Back from brink, now Maribel Mendoza follows her nursing dream
Inspiring story of woman with rare liver condition who was hours from death
LYING unconscious on a life-support machine, Maribel Mendoza was unaware that doctors gave her just a few hours to live.
The 24-year-old former La Sainte Union pupil was diagnosed with Biliary atresia, a rare and incurable liver condition, shortly after birth, and faced a race against time after a series of flare-ups left her in a critical condition.
Maribel was in need of an emergency transplant but a shortage of donors in 2006 had forced her and her family into an agonising two-week wait.
With her life ebbing away, a matching organ was found and now the grateful 28-year-old, who lives in South End Close, South End Green, is about to start work in her dream job as a trainee nurse. She said those critical days in hospital three years ago had inspired her to go into her new profession.
“I had been waiting and waiting for a transplant but it had been a terrible year in terms of donors,” said Maribel. “I was in intensive care and I was getting so desperate. They were running out of time. I was unconscious, and the day before they told my mum I might not make it. I heard it was maybe a matter of two hours.”
As a child, following a series of operations, Maribel was able to lead a fairly normal life until she was told she needed her first liver transplant aged 17.
She said: “When I was born people with my condition were unlikely to live past the age of two – but now things have changed quite a bit. I didn’t want to go on the list because it just seemed like I would be having lots of operations. I thought having a transplant would be a death sentence. In the end I did it for my mum.”
Her first transplant left her with a number of medical complications and, in 2006, doctors advised her she would need a second life-saving operation.
It has been a lifelong battle with chronic illness for Maribel who has been left with psychological scars from her close brushes with death. But despite her ordeal she has found the time to volunteer at the Rosary Primary School in Belsize Park and to work as a teaching assistant at King’s College Hospital. She keeps in touch with the family of her first donor and does promotional work for the charity Live Life Then Give Life (LLTGL).
“It has been emotionally challenging,” said Maribel. “I have had depression and counseling and therapy. Everyone asks me how I cope but you just do – you have no choice. I’m really looking forward to starting work. My time in hospital has made me realise I want to be a nurse. The feeling of giving something back is just incredible.”
She added: “I am only here thanks to the kindness of my two donor families. Joining the donor register gives hope to people waiting for transplants and really does save a life.
• You can sign the organ donor register online at www.uktransplant.org.uk or by phoning 0300 123 23 23.
TOM FOOT