When doctors told Rhoda Williams in May she had less than two weeks to live, the news came years after her deteriorating body had started failing from a recently diagnosed rare condition with her liver.
Her husband Darren McKay said her skin resembled the yellow walls in their Prince George home.
Williams could eat very little, was exhausted all the time and needed help moving from one space to another.
"As years went by I started slowing down, (became) bedridden for a long time. My pain was so unbearable that I couldn't do anything."
Williams knew something was wrong when she was young but it wasn't until 2008 that the 40-year-old finally learned the name for her illness.
"I suffered all my life with stomach problems," she said of her experience with primary biliary cirrhosis.
PCB is a rare autoimmune disease that has no cure and relies on medication to slow its progression. It leads to inflamed and irritated bile ducts of the liver, eventually destroying them. The blocked ducts prevents the flow of bile, causing build up of both bile and scar tissue in the liver, leading the liver to lose its function.
When she was finally diagnosed, it had already progressed to stage two, halfway to the final, often fatal, stage.
Last year, she reached stage four and in May found out she had weeks to live. She was air evacuated to Vancouver, put on a liver transplant list, and four days later on June 8, she had her surgery.
"I was in shock," she said of getting the liver. "It all happened so quick."
Even a few weeks after the surgery she was already noticing a difference.
"I have a lot more energy and my colour. I used to be so jaundiced. My eye colour was yellow, my fingernails and hands," she said, adding she still feels quite a lot of pain around her stomach while she mends. "Before the liver I was tired just to go from my bedroom to the bathroom, and that was probably 10 steps away."
Williams said she can't quite believe she got the liver.
"I feel wonderful," she said, adding her doctors say she is recovering better than expected. "Everything about my health is getting better."
"We both feel like we got a second chance," added McKay.
"(I was) suffering all my life," Williams said. "Having to deal with the pain, not being able to work, and not being able to do anything and I always had to have someone take care of me."
For the last 10 years that person has been McKay, and he's taken time off work to care for her in Vancouver while she recovers. It's put incredible financial strain on them and her four boys.
Even with the $1,200 donated by friends, the two are three months late on their van payments, and struggle to cover the cost of living in Vancouver as well as their payments in Prince George, where Williams' 17-year-old son is taking care of the home.
"He ran out of food and I had to ask on Facebook for people to lend me money," she said.
"It's been hard. It's so expensive to live around here, the food and the taxis and everything else we have to do."
"We have made our money stretch for so long and have only $20 left to our name. Our savings wiped clean living day to day here and sending money to my boy in P.G. who is manning the house."
They lucked out on living and were able to get into the Aboriginal Patients' Lodge, which is covered.
Williams is hoping to leave early before September, when doctors projected, but her family said her health comes first.
"I cried the other day and Darren and the boys, they were holding on to me and they kept telling me everything would be fine."
Friends have set up a fundraising page for Williams at www.gofundme.com/z7pf2t8.
