'You need to hang on': The personal story of Sharlene De Amyand behind Tallangatta's DonateLife campaigning

It was early in 2015, and the Tallangatta mum-of-four had recently undergone surgery in anticipation of being placed on the organ transplant waiting list.

"I had surgery early in the week and that weekend I was feeling abnormally tired, and I thought I'd just over-done it," she said.

"I woke up and was pottering around, and then I felt really ill and started to vomit, and it was blood.

"I thought, 'Something's really wrong here', and managed to get to a phone.

"I called my husband - his number was on speed dial - and Paul said 'What's wrong?', and I said 'Come home now', and I passed out.

"He didn't know what had happened; when he saw the pool of blood he grabbed a shovel and followed the trail and found me."

A "varicose vein on the inside" had not healed and was bleeding into Sharlene's stomach.

Paramedics considered landing an air ambulance in their steep front yard, but instead Sharlene was taken by a MICA paramedic to Albury Base Hospital where she received 14 blood transfusions.

The mum-of-four crashed again at Albury, as doctors worked to stabilise her so that she could be flown to Melbourne.

"We have a very dear friend who works in the ED at Albury, and I said to her months later, I don't know whether this actually happened or whether I imagined it - I had a vision you held onto my hand and whispered in my ear, 'You need to hang on, we are doing everything we can'," Sharlene said.

"She was gobsmacked and said 'I did, we were sure we were going to lose you'."

It's the only thing Sharlene recalls from three weeks at hospital and nine surgeries.

But her daughter Chelsea remembers it all. She was told by a doctor, "your mum is the sickest person in this hospital" - and it was a big hospital.

"It was hell, you wouldn't wish it upon anybody," she said.

"We were in the eleventh hour and a couple (organ donors) were coming up, and sometimes she wasn't well enough to be operated on, or there would be a few boxes ticked, but then something wasn't compatible.

"There's so many variables that have to correlate."

It was clear that Sharlene would need a transplant to survive.

Doctors had told her earlier in the year it would need to happen by Christmas, because of the damage done to her liver over seven years of managing an autoimmune disease.

But because of the "freak" medical complication, she never got on the list.

"They said to Paul at one stage, 'We've got two days left, and if we don't find a liver in that two days, her system won't cope with the trauma of having the surgery'," Sharlene said.

"It got down to basically hours."

But a compatible organ donor was found, saving Sharlene's life.

In the weeks during and after the ordeal, the Tallangatta community was there for the De Amyand family.

The boys were driven to football, the refrigerator in the shed out the back was filled with food, and the local service station owner filled up Paul's car, on-the-house.

And when Sharlene was back on her feet, she was inundated with accounts from people she knew who had not before disclosed their own story.

"I wanted to spread the message, and talked to the year 12 kids last year about having the conversation with their parents," she said.

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"It was just making them stop and think, because when you're 18 and six-feet-tall you think you're bulletproof.

"A lot of them explained to their parents that having it on your licence is not valid anymore."

Sharlene approached her fellow members at the Tallangatta Football Netball Club at the start of last year about joining the movement started by the Rutherglen Cats to raise awareness of organ donation.

Chelsea said Jess McLennan's legacy, the basis for the Cats' campaign, had struck a cord with her family.

"Jess was young, and then you had mum - two totally different demographics brought together," she said.

"When it impacts you directly, it hits a lot closer to home and makes you more proactive.

"Everyone from the people who only played a small role to the surgeons wrapped us up in this compassion, love and respect for what we were going through, and they were there for every step.

"If people knew this, it would seem a lot less scary.

"That's where social media did become really powerful; I wrote something that said 'Please have the conversation, because you could be the difference that keeps a family like mine together'."

Rutherglen president Greg Lumby said his club's campaign, now in its third year, was enhanced by the collaboration with the Hoppers.

"It's a pretty big day to celebrate what Jess was able to achieve form her organs being donated, and now has Tallangatta's involvement with Sharlene's personal circumstance," he said.

The Hoppers, under Sharlene's guidance, received $7842 through the Organ and Tissue Authority community awareness and education program for 2018 activities.

They include dedicated jerseys for all sides, a talk at the local high school and involvement with Albury Wodonga Health, who have donated medals for best-on-field.

There will again be the DonateLife and Jess McLennan cups.

Fourteen of 20 projects funded this year by the federal government's community awareness program take place during DonateLife Week, which runs until this Sunday.

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Following on from the efforts of the Hoppers and the Cats, the Tallangatta and District League has dedicated this weekend's round to organ donation awareness.

Sharlene will no doubt share the story of her transplant, and how four years on she is happy and healthy.

"I take a lot of medication, but I only have to go to Melbourne every six months now," she said.

"Whatever decision you make about organ donation, just make sure people know, because when it happens it's going to be at the most dreadful time in their lives.

"When you do what Jess McLennan did, people like me get another chance, to be around, to see their kids get married and have babies."

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