Kieron Dyer gives a rare health update after being hospitalised and diagnosed with a liver condition having taken tests in the last year.
The 43-year-old former Premier League footballer has vowed to make the most of his second chance in memory of the person who is saving his life.
Dyer needs a liver transplant after being diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a condition which scars the bile ducts and ultimately causes serious damage.
He is now listening out for a phone call from the donor team at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge to tell him that a suitable organ has become available.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Former England star Kieron Dyer is staying positive in his battle with serious disease | @OllieHolt22 https://t.co/A5u8YKArKV
— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) June 19, 2022
He has been on a waiting list for a donor liver for six months, saying in an exclusive interview with Mail on Sunday: ‘If I don’t have the transplant,’ he says, ‘my liver will pack in. There would be nothing they could do for me.’
‘Sometimes there are people waiting for transplants who only have weeks to live. I am getting increasingly fatigued but I’m not in the super-urgent category so I might have to wait a few more months until my liver has really deteriorated before I am called in. There are not enough livers for the demand of people who need them.
‘I am just thankful that they have found out what’s wrong with me. I’m aware I’m dependent on someone else’s misfortune giving me the chance to live a long and happy life. My greatest hope is that, whoever’s liver I get, I do that person proud. They encourage you to touch base with the family of your donor after your operation and that’s something I thoroughly intend to do.
‘It would give me some comfort, I think, if I was in the situation of a family who had lost a loved one. They would have lost someone they have cherished and loved but through their generosity they have given someone else the chance of a long life. I hope I’ll earn their legacy. I wouldn’t want to screw that up. I know how precious a second chance would be.’
‘I was really scared when I got told I needed a liver transplant,’ he adds. ‘I thought that was it. But then when the surgeon and the transplant team came round, they have got so many people in the team, co-ordinators, the anaesthetists, physios and psychiatrists. And you see people who have overcome the operation. It’s kind of routine for the hospital now, they do so many of them.
‘Your family and people close to you panic when you tell them. I could see when I told people, I could see the dread on them. It gave me the mental side back. I am not putting bravado on but you have to find that inner strength, not just for you but for them. They’re worried but I’m not worried.
‘I just feel that the way my life has been in the last six months, I am constantly fatigued and I can’t do what I used to do.
‘I am looking forward to it in a way. I am looking forward to being a brand new me and doing things better and quicker because I am still competitive.
Dyer was diagnosed with a liver condition in 2002 and PSC was discovered during a routine check-up, though he wasn’t expecting to need a transplant until further on in life.
His situation has gone on to become more pressing and has had to put his coaching career on hold as a result, departing Ipswich more recently.
He said he was scared after receiving the news, but has gone on to found new strength to look forward to what lies ahead after dealing with the fears of his family and friends.
Dyer said: “I am not putting bravado on, but you have to find that inner strength, not just for you, but for them. They’re worried, but I’m not worried.
“I am looking forward to it in a way. I am looking forward to being a brand new me and doing things better and quicker because I am still competitive.”
‘The record for someone being discharged from hospital after this operation is nine days and I want to beat that. I am not fazed by it. I have got the mental strength to believe I will overcome the operation.’
He admits: ‘It’s odd to talk about good fortune, I suppose, when you need a liver transplant but it is my good fortune that I am young and fit and that the success rate for the procedure is really high.
‘When you are doing your tests, they bring people in to see you who have had transplants and they look incredible. They look better than me, that’s for sure. So I’m staying positive.
‘I get fatigued very easily. The liver is a filter. It gets rid of waste products and helps your body get rid of things. I did a charity bike ride some time ago and my legs are still in bits. I can tell my liver’s compromised and not functioning. I am not going to complain because I can still live a life.
‘When I was first diagnosed, my eyes were yellow and my skin was jaundiced. The PSC is the scarring of the tubes in your liver, the tubes that produce bile. If the scarring gets so thick, the bile can’t go through the tubes into your liver and it goes into your bloodstream. That’s why I was going yellow, where the bile was going into my bloodstream.
‘Until they do more research, the only thing they can do is a transplant but those symptoms I had have been eased by medication and I can do stuff with my children. I can still do sport but it takes a long time to recover. Sometimes in the afternoon I will sit down in front of the television and wake up six hours later.’
Dyer knows some people may suggest that his condition is linked to his reputation for living a party lifestyle, especially from his Newcastle days. But Dyer claims he’s never really been a heavy drinker and was only diagnosed with a liver condition in 2002, meaning he had to have regular check-ups and biopsies and it was at one of those, several years ago, when PSC was discovered.
‘It was a few years ago that they first said I had it,’ Dyer says, ‘but they thought I would need a liver transplant maybe in my late 60s or early 70s. I thought I would have had a good innings by then and what will be will be.
‘But then I appeared on Sky as a pundit last year and people were texting me about my jaundice and saying my eyes looked yellow. When they told me I needed a transplant within a year that was a shock to the system because I was expecting to have one in 30 years’ time.
‘I went to Craig Bellamy’s book launch a few years back and he gave me a signed copy and wrote in it I was the best young player growing up that he had seen and if it hadn’t been for injuries I would have been some player. He wrote “trust me, in coaching and managing you could have an even better career”.
‘This is part two of my life and I want to see what I can achieve. The hard thing is that I am dependent on someone else’s misfortune to get it, but if I’m given another opportunity at life I’m going to embrace it.’
Twitter users reacted as Kieron Dyer gives a health update after being hospitalised and diagnosed with a liver condition…
@anmol3: Shows how fragile and capricious health and life can be… wishing Kieron the very best 🙏
@dannyrubin: Great piece – hope he gets a transplant soon
@jillcbquest: A sobering article, once again reminds you of how precious life is. I hope Kieron gets his transplant sometime soon, also a good prompt to persuade others to become donors. So many people are out there hoping for a second chance of life, like Kieron.
@PSYCHO1892: Hope he gets his 2nd chance. But it pains me to think that someone who killed their liver with alcohol gets one before he does.
@Andymilburn7: Onwards Pinhead… you’ll beat this
@BruceyXRP: What a winger when he was fit
@davidcarps17: All the best Kieron! Seemed a canny bloke when met him in baja beach club all those years ago. Get well soon
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