Real story: Kaye Wragg

One day, when I was 15, I just felt dreadful. It came on quite suddenly. Sickness and tummy upset. I put it down to a stomach bug but a week would pass, I’d start to get better, then it would come back again. Meanwhile I started to itch, a small patch of skin that became redder by the day, and the itch started to spread. It felt like something was taking over my body. I was hauled to the doctors, told it was a bug and to just let it ride itself out!

I'd started to wear very light golden yellow eyeshadow and often I would wipe away droppings of shadow from inside the corners of the whites of my eyes. Now the yellow powder in the corner of my eyes wasn't wiping away, and I just couldn't figure this out. At the time I was staying with my sister and her husband while my parents were in the process of moving house. My dad came for a surprise visit, and as I opened the door Dad just stared and said "You're bright yellow". A second visit to the doctor followed. Immediately I was told no school, but hospital and tests.

I was sent to Monsall Hospital in Manchester. The diagnosis was non A non B hepatitis. A very rare disease for a girl so young, but something that could be treated with a fat free diet. No drugs, nothing medical - just plain old fat free food.

So, off I went back home with my parents. No school until the disease looked like it was under control. I had blood tests weekly to show how well I was responding to the fat free diet, and some home schooling sent to me in the post to not miss out on my GCSE's.

The down side of a fat free diet is that your energy levels drop hugely, and so to help you not be fatigued too much there was the adding of glucose to any drink. Some days I could hardly move due to tiredness. It took a while for the yellow to subside and I’d now started to put on weight because of the glucose intake and no exercise.

Three months later I was told I could go back to school for the last year of my GCSE's, I’d managed two months of catching up on top of new work, I was moving on. My diet went back to normal, and I was told that I didn't have to visit the doctors anymore, I was discharged.

Two and a half months later I ate a chocolate bar and started to feel sick. The tummy upsets began, the itching came back, red spots were appearing like a rash, my midriff area felt tender. I tried to hide it from my parents, wishing it away but I knew I couldn’t when my fingernails started to look an odd shade of yellow, and then I just felt despair.

We went to a new GP, but again I was told to go home and to just be careful of not eating too much fat in my diet. A few days later I was getting worse, and I was turning yellow all over again. My parents asked for a second opinion, and after a blood test I was hastily admitted back to Monsall Hospital. I was put in an isolation unit and the next few days were quite scary.

It was then that I met my consultant, who was amazing from the start until the last time I saw him in 1996. He very calmly sat down and told me how difficult it was for them to diagnose certain cases. What they had thought was non A non B hepatitis was in fact autoimmune hepatitis. I had to have a liver biopsy to determine the amount of liver damage that had occurred over the last year, and from that minute on I was supplied with drugs that felt like a small pharmacy in my bag. All I can remember is counting eight red steroid tablets, two white azathioprine tablets and a blue zovirax tablet in the morning, and then having to do that three times a day, with blood tests every week until further notice. The response was immediate, I suddenly realised that what I’d been accepting as a way of living was quite painful and stressful, all of a sudden I felt really well, full of energy and alive again.

Two years later I was being weaned off the steroids very gradually and signs were good, soon I would be drug free and hopefully just relying on blood tests to monitor the liver function. I left 6th form with 10 GCSE's, two A levels and a drive to be an actress and then headed off to Uni.

In my last few months at Uni we were preparing to go to Edinburgh festival for a two week run of our final show, and I’d bagged my first professional show to start after touring the country for six months, so things were all going great. I think I did my rebellious bit here, smoking, drinking more than I should etc. I had a blip of thinking I was invincible.

We had a week off and I went to spend it with my family down south in a caravan. Great fun, until day two: stomach upset to the point of agony, food smells knocking me sick, and by that stage I just knew it wasn't looking good. I had to go straight to my consultant. In the car journey with my Dad I wept quietly. Is this it? Is this going to be my life? Is this going to kill me? Will it ever be under control?

The tests proved it to be true, it was a third flare up, and straight away I was back onto the steroids as before. That was a massive wake up call to me. I'd had years of trying to stay alive, what was I doing ruining the fantastic work of doctors, just for a few teenage mad moments. 

Obviously the side effects of steroids are many, but by far the one that had and still has us all laughing was that I could never carry a cup of tea on a saucer without it rattling. It gave me the shakes and so if you got half a cup of tea in the saucer by me doing my Julie Walters 'two soups' routine, then it brought a smile to our faces. The depths of depression never lasted that long with me, I’m quite an optimistic person, but there were times I admit that I just thought I couldn't cope with things as they were.

I was discharged  in 1995. My consultant’s advice was, it will always be a real threat, but to carry on and just avoid any triggers if possible: don’t drink, only on special occasions; don’t get too stressed; don’t eat too many fatty foods and if pregnant, be monitored throughout. I was classed as high risk due to the possible change in hormonal activity, so also, no use of any female contraception that controls the hormone routine.

In 1996 I got my first TV regular role in a Debbie Horsefield show called 'Born To Run'. By now I’d lost all of the weight that years of steroids and glucose intake had piled on, and I was starting my professional television career. I kept my illness secret for a while because I thought I might not get covered on the insurance, having to be physically fit was paramount. I knew I’d been well for a good year and half but was worried that it could come back and then I’d probably lose my job. After talks with my agent and family I realised I could never run away from what was a part of me, and that anyone can become ill at any time with anything, so really I was no different. 

I recently had a baby, and my fear of it all coming back became so real for the first time in many many years. I remembered how ill I felt and that having all of these years with good health has made me not want to ever go back there again.