Parents have blasted cruel strangers who compared their toddler to The Simpsons character Maggie Simpson due to her yellow skin caused by liver disease.
Heartbroken mum Abbie McClean described how her 11-month-old daughter Camiyah Burton attracted stares as her skin turned yellow from jaundice while she grew increasingly poorly waiting for a liver transplant.
"We got a lot of stares," the Coventry resident told CoventryLive: "The whites of her eyes were really yellow and her skin was piercing yellow. At 11 months, it just got worse and worse - in the end before the transplant she got that yellow she was actually almost green in colour.
"We did actually have a few people, quite horrible people, who described her as 'a Simpson'. That's how yellow she was. Most of the comments were nice but there would be the odd comment where someone would say 'oh is that Maggie Simpson?'.
Little Camiyah was diagnosed with biliary atresia at just five-weeks-old. She was given surgery to help treat it but seven months later it was declared a failure and Abbie was told that her daughter’s only chance of survival was a liver transplant.
Little Camiyah joined the transplant list last November and thankfully a donor was found and she had the life-saving surgery just 19 days later.
But as the family nervously waited, the mum-of-two said she became increasingly poorly and yellower by the day - prompting cruel trolls to compare her to the baby from the American cartoon.
She described the nerve wracking wait to find a lifesaving transplant donor, while her daughter got sicker and sicker with each passing day.
"We were actually told that if she didn't get a transplant, she wouldn't live past the age of two. It was actually terrifying and there were loads of thoughts going through my head.
"I just couldn't really come to terms with it for a long while, I just couldn't believe what was happening to be honest. I actually thought she was going to die."
Camiyah's donor was an adult female in her 20s who passed away in a car crash. Abbie said that her daughter had the left lobe of her liver and the right was donated to an adult - so the donor saved two lives.
Abbie said: "Her surgery went really well. Her recovery from the transplant wasn't the easiest - there were a few things along the way. Since being home from the transplant, she actually seemed very well to how she was before - she was coming on leaps and bounds and learned to walk and crawl and do everything she couldn't do before.
Camiyah's jaundice cleared up quickly after the transplant and she returned to her normal colour within a fortnight. "She's been the best she's ever been in her whole life to be honest. She's now thriving," the mum said.
"It's great to see her like that, it's like she's finally living now - she's running around all the time and has developed such an amazing character.
Fortunately the transplant was a success and Camiyah is doing well. A grateful Abbie is now keen to raise awareness of the importance of organ donation.
"We go by the phrase, if you would take an organ for you or your loved one you should be willing to donate yours when you no longer need them," she said.
