MADE In Chelsea star Sam Vanderpump has revealed the surprising way he learned he needed a life-saving liver transplant.
The 28-year-old has end-stage liver disease and needs a new organ in the coming years to survive.
Sam, who was diagnosed with congenital hepatic fibrosis of the liver and polycystic kidney disease aged four, had lived a healthy life until he nearly died from sepsis in December.
Appearing on today’s This Morning, alongside fiancée Alice Yaxley, 24, brave Sam said he doesn’t blame anyone for the impersonal way he found out about the gravity of his situation.
Numerous tests followed his sepsis battle, during which Sam was ‘flooded’ with strong antibiotics, as doctors tried to understand what was going on with his body.
He said: “Ten-12 weeks ago, I got a notification on the NHS app. It’s no one’s fault, unfortunately technology being too good, saying: ‘I’ve reviewed your latest scan and I’m going to send you for liver transplant assessment’.
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“It was crazy. It was such a radical turn.”
He continued: “It was definitely a shock. I was frantic, in touch with my doctor who said ‘I can only apologise. I thought I had days to contact before the letter reached you’.”
Sam first revealed his condition during an episode of Made In Chelsea in an emotional scene with Ollie Locke.
He told Ollie: “There is no hope of my liver getting better.”
Ollie then asked Sam how he was feeling, to which he said: “The way I look at it is I’m healthy now, hopefully I will remain healthy all the way up until I’ll get a call and go in for surgery and then I wake up and I’ll be healthier.”
The star then said other people will be “higher up on the list”, adding that he’s unsure when his transplant will happen.
Just weeks ago, Sam and Alice revealed they’re expecting their first baby; a boy they plan on naming Marmaduke.
“It was definitely a surprise,” said Alice. “I had missed a period, but I have polycystic ovaries, so it wasn’t a shock to have missed a period.
“But I did a test to be safe, and I wasn’t expecting anything, but it was positive. It was a big shock, we looked at each other and thought, wow, this is big but everything else in our lives was so right.”
She added: “I thought there’s a chance in the future that maybe I wouldn’t be able to have children so in a way it was a relief too because this shows that I can.”
According to the NHS, polycystic ovaries are ovaries that are enlarged and contain many small, fluid-filled sacs, known as follicles.
The follicles are underdeveloped sacs where eggs typically mature and often fail to release an egg, which can lead to irregular ovulation.
