Kieron Dyer returns to Sky Sports for the first time since telling Mail Sport about the “miracle” liver transplant that saved his life.
Kieron Dyer has made his first appearance on Sky Sports since revealing his ordeal over a liver transplant that saved his life.
The former England international spoke exclusively to Mail Sport last month and revealed that he was dying from a rare liver disease before a miracle transplant saved his life.
Dyer made 419 senior games for the Tractor Boys, Newcastle, West Ham, QPR, and Middlesbrough throughout his career, which started with Ipswich in 1996.
He retired as a player in 2013 and later went into coaching – as well as taking part in a number of reality TV shows – but in an emotional interview opened up to Mail Sport about how his liver was being ravaged by a rare disease, primary sclerosing cholangitis, and how he almost run out of time before a donor was found.
Friends thought that Dyer would be dead before there was a chance of a transplant, but even though he was ‘as yellow as Bart Simpson’, Dyer did not give up hope and a donor was found in September
The fact that someone else died so that I might live is something I still can’t process.’ Dyer said as he wiped tears during his revelations.
‘I haven’t spoken about it until now because it is such an overwhelming thought. Maybe 99% of the population only gets one chance of life and I have been given two.
‘The reason I have been given two chances is because someone died. To have that responsibility and burden to do that person justice is…I still can’t come to terms with it. There are days where I just cry. I am happy. I am not sad. It is just such a powerful thought that someone had to die.
Since that meeting Dyer has made his first TV appearance, as part of the Soccer Sunday panel alongside Lee Hendrie and Clinton Morrison, where he once again shared those same thoughts on the person who’s liver he was given.
He also told the panel of the process he had to go through in waiting for a liver and the toll it took on him mentally.
Dyer said: ‘Mentally it was so demanding, the amount of false alarms you have where you think you have a liver, but it’s either too big or too fatty or it’s been damaged. So you have to go through the whole process again, so mentally it’s really challenging.
When I first got diagnosed with the disease they said it would take three to six months for me to get a liver. Then you have to stay within an hour of the hospital, you can’t leave, you’ve got to have your phone on you at all times. Because if you miss the phone call, you miss the liver. It’s waiting game and your life gets put on hold, but it’s worth it in the end.’
During the segment, Dyer also described the hallucinations he had due to the failure of his liver and how despite being told it would take months to find him a donor, the reality was it took over four years before the transplant could happen.