Less than a year ago, Paul Mullen’s family had been called to his intensive care bed to say their final goodbyes.<\/p>\n
He was suffering from a rare autoimmune condition that was causing his liver and kidneys to fail.<\/p>\n
However, his life was saved by a transplant.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old is now in training to take on the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge in July to fundraise for the British Liver Trust.<\/p>\n
“I was adamant I was going to do something because I felt I owed it to myself to make life count and to the person who allowed me to have this second chance,” he says.<\/p>\n
Mullen first suspected something was wrong in 2023 when his shins started itching so badly that he would scratch them until they bled.<\/p>\n
He also developed crushing fatigue, followed by jaundice and was diagnosed in 2024 with advanced primary biliary cholangitis.<\/p>\n
The British Liver Trust describes it as a rare autoimmune condition which causes inflammation of the bile ducts, with symptoms including itching and fatigue.<\/p>\n
As the disease progressed, litres of fluid began building up on Mullen’s abdomen, and he needed to be regularly drained in hospital.<\/p>\n
He had a demanding job in hospitality, working 70 hours a week, but his health deteriorated so much he could no longer continue to work.<\/p>\n
Mullen, from Sheffield, was placed on the liver transplant waiting list in May 2025, but by August his health had deteriorated so badly that he was rushed to intensive care.<\/p>\n
“A donor liver had become available but I wasn’t well enough to accept it \u2013 I really struggled with that mentally because it finally sank in how ill I actually was,” he says.<\/p>\n
‘Nothing but love’<\/p>\n
Fortunately, his condition improved and when a second liver became available in August, the transplant was able to go ahead.<\/p>\n
Mullen says: “I’ve just recently written my letter to my donor’s family, which was quite a tough thing to do because how do you take any kind of joy out someone else’s grief?<\/p>\n
“It’s something that’s been quite important for me to do.<\/p>\n
“I went through so many emotions again, the anxiety, happiness, sadness, fear, the fact that someone died to enable me to live.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got nothing but love and thanks to the guys in hospital.”<\/p>\n
It was while he lay recovering in hospital that he had the idea of doing a challenge to support the British Liver Trust to help fund their research and services.<\/p>\n
“I also wanted to raise awareness of the stigma surrounding liver disease because so many people think it’s only caused by alcohol,” he says.<\/p>\n
Now he is walking 10km (6.2 miles) a day to train for the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge in July.<\/p>\n
“My consultant did tell me off quite a lot in the first couple of months because they were worried I was overdoing it, but I found it tough to hold back,” he says.<\/p>\n
The route involves a 24-km (15 mile) trek across the Yorkshire Dales and climbing the three highest peaks in Yorkshire, Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside, and Ingleborough.<\/p>\n
Mullen will be accompanied by his son Alexander and his brother-in-law, Wade Savage.<\/p>\n
“It’s crazy to think of the state I was in a year ago when I couldn’t even walk 15 yards to the toilet from my hospital bed,” Mullen says.<\/p>\n
“My consultant is really happy with my progress and is now very supportive of me doing the challenge.”<\/p>\n
Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, catch up with the latest episode of Look North<\/a><\/p>\n Related internet linksMore on this story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a year ago, Paul Mullen’s family had been called to his intensive care bed to say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3499,5640,17,5642,5641,5644,5643],"class_list":["post-10220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-autoimmune-condition","tag-british-liver-trust","tag-canada","tag-liver-transplant","tag-paul-mullen","tag-transplant","tag-yorkshire-three-peaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}