A Warrington family has launched an emotional £200,000 fundraising appeal to help rebuild the life of a 44-year-old mum who has survived an extraordinary medical battle which doctors say is so rare they want to publish it in medical journals around the world.
Lois Kinder from Lymm, was living an ordinary family life until 13 July 2026, when everything changed. She was suddenly taken critically ill and rushed to Warrington Hospital, where doctors discovered she was suffering from acute liver failure. Within hours she was placed into an induced coma.
Just three days later, she was transferred to the specialist Liver Intensive Care Unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, one of only a handful of centres in the UK equipped to carry out emergency liver transplants.
Lois was immediately placed on the super-urgent transplant list. Her family knew that every passing hour mattered.
After several potential donor livers proved unsuitable, hope finally came on 22 July, when a suitable donor liver became available.
But what followed was a nightmare that nobody could have anticipated. During the transplant operation, Lois suffered three cardiac arrests after a blood clot blocked the main artery to her lungs.
She was deprived of oxygen for a prolonged period as surgeons and critical care specialists fought desperately to keep her alive.
At one point, her family was told to prepare for the worst. They were warned that Lois was unlikely to survive the operation. But against extraordinary odds, she did.
The battle, however, was far from over.
Lois spent weeks in intensive care, with her family living through an agonising period of uncertainty as they waited for signs of recovery.
Then, six weeks after she was first admitted to hospital, came a moment they had almost stopped daring to hope for. Lois began to wake up.
Every movement and every tiny indication of progress has been described by her family as a miracle.
But the prolonged cardiac arrests and lack of oxygen have left Lois with significant brain damage, and she remains in critical care undergoing intensive neurological rehabilitation.
Nobody can yet say what the future will look like.
Her family does not know whether she will walk again, how much use of her body she will regain, or what level of specialist care she may ultimately require.
What they do know is that Lois is still fighting. And they are determined to fight alongside her.
Her husband Oliver, who has asked for the appeal to receive as much publicity and support as possible, said the family faces a long road ahead.
Lois is expected to remain in hospital for months as her recovery continues at a painfully slow pace.
The family home is also unlikely to meet her future needs.
If Lois requires a wheelchair or significant ongoing care, extensive adaptations may be needed to give her a safe and accessible home.
That is why her family and her two best friends, Ruth and Misia, have launched a GoFundMe appeal with a target of £200,000.
The money will help provide an accessible home and make the adaptations needed to give Lois the best possible chance of rebuilding her life when she is eventually able to leave hospital.
Ruth, who has been Lois’ best friend for 33 years and counting, helped establish the fundraiser alongside Misia.
The family says the events surrounding Lois’ illness and transplant are so unusual that the medical team treating her has asked permission to produce a case study for medical journals worldwide.
The aim is to help medical professionals learn from what happened and potentially improve understanding of similarly complex cases in the future.
For the family, however, the priority is much more personal. They simply want Lois home. They want her children to have their mum back.
And they want to give her every possible opportunity to rebuild a life which changed forever in a matter of hours.
Her husband Oliver, added: “We would be very grateful of as much exposure and sharing of this as possible so we can raise as much money to rebuild Lois’ life and adapt a home for Lois’ return.”
He added that the road ahead would be a long one, with Lois expected to remain in hospital for months.
The family knows there are no guarantees. But Lois has already defied the odds once.
She survived acute liver failure. She received a life-saving transplant. She survived three cardiac arrests during the operation. And after weeks in critical care, she began to wake.
Now her family is asking the community to help give her the best possible chance of taking the next step.
Every donation, however large or small, could help bring Lois closer to a future back at home.
The fundraising appeal can be found on the family’s GoFundMe page which has raised over £4,000 towards an initial £28,000 target.
If you cannot donate, the family says that sharing the appeal could be just as valuable in helping it reach people who may be able to help.
After everything Lois has been through, her family is asking for one thing above all else: Help them bring her home.
