The Cheshire lad had been diagnosed with Biliary Atresia when he was a baby, which is a rare condition that stops the gallbladder from forming properly in newborns.
It occurs when the ducts that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder don’t develop as expected and are blocked. Symptoms include jaundice (this yellow skin and eyes) and it can cause serious liver damage.
‘I absolutely feared for his life’
Kieran’s mum, Kerry Cooper, says this time round he hadn’t been ‘feeling well’ and then woke up the next morning looking ‘yellow’.
“We got blue-lighted to Birmingham and he was there for five weeks,” she recalled.
“He had been yellow for a few months but it got worse while he was in Birmingham. He was yellow but he went luminous, we joked saying he looked like Bart Simpson.”
Kerry said ‘everyone was looking at him’ whenever they went out to get fresh air.
“He had to go into intensive care. It was pretty rough as a family, we didn’t know whether he would survive it,” she continued.
“It was awful. I absolutely feared for his life.”
Following his op as a baby, Kieran was fit and healthy. But in 2014, he started suffering complications and was put on a waiting list for a liver transplant in 2023.
His condition then deteriorated earlier this year.
Kieran spent five weeks in Queen Elizabeth Hospital before getting a second liver transplant on 28 February. And it was during all of this that he was suffering from jaundice again.
This occurs as a result of the build-up of a waste substance called bilirubin.
“It was a shock [turning yellow], I looked like one of the Simpsons,” he said.
“It made me self-conscious [walking down the street], it was quite uncomfortable.”
Following his op, Kieran’s skin went ‘back to normal straight away’, and he feels ‘a lot better’.
‘I’ve been to hell and back’
However, the lad says he is ‘still scared to go out’.
“It wasn’t painful before but after [the transplant] it was horrendous. I had to learn to walk again too, it wasn’t very nice,” he explained.
“I go to the hospital every six weeks and I have to take medication for the rest of my life.”
Kieran struggled with the way people would be looking at him while his skin had gone yellow but he ‘couldn’t help it’.
“It went back to normal straight away,” he added. “I’m glad I’m back on the mend and I’m grateful to be alive.”
Kieran currently does not work due to his health and is sharing his story now to raise awareness of his condition.
“You don’t want to go through the stuff I’ve been through, because I’ve been to hell and back,” he said.