I’m Liz – mum of five, former nurse and specialist family nurse, health visitor, and now a lecturer training the next generation of healthcare professionals.

In 2023, my life stopped.

Two words changed everything: liver failure.

The journey that followed was intense and traumatic – diagnosis, vomiting blood, jaundice, endless waits in ambulances and hospital corridors, fluid gain, ICU, dialysis, a life-saving transplant, and coming terrifyingly close to goodbye.

The doctors were happy. Medically, I was a “success case”.
But when I got home, nothing felt like success.

I was alive, but I was not ok.

I’d lost money, work, confidence, friendships, my sense of identity, my place in the world. My family had already been through so much, and I didn’t know how to make sense of any of it without breaking down.

I waited months for emotional support that never truly came. I felt deserted – stuck on that island, surviving but not living, putting all my emotions in a sealed mental box just to function.

The turning point wasn’t neat or pretty. It started with a notebook.

I began to journal – scribbled sentences, rants, questions, memories, pain, gratitude, confusion. I read everything I could about trauma and PTSD. I talked honestly with a few trusted friends. I slowly pulled apart the box I’d shoved everything into.

That process became my raft off the island.
It gave me language, tools, and – eventually – a new life: Life 2.0.

I used my experience, my 1st class honours degree, my nursing and family work to step into teaching and then to build LivWell Family: a space for others who are stuck between survival and rebuilding, waiting for help that never seems to come.