Organ donation

I’ve done a dolphin swim. I’ve done a helicopter ride. I’ve done a racing car ride, and it was amazing, it was awesome. I might be a bit dead below the waist but my God I’m not up here. So long as this part is working, I can get around every other way. I don’t care. And I’ve absolutely loved it.

And, like I said, I wrote a book to help other people. I work for another charity, for TSN, Transport Support Network, helping people that are waiting for transplants, which I absolutely love doing.

And to me, having a transplant is, it’s the best gift anybody can give you. You can’t get any better. There’s no other gift that can, you know, and I’m always thankful for that. And I’ll always be thankful for that.

And every anniversary, on my second birthday, I always have a flower in a special vase for my donor, with a thank you card. Without her, I wouldn’t be here today. And there’s a saying which I do believe in' “Please don’t take your organs to heaven, because heaven knows they need them here.” I believe in that.
 

I’ve visited India twice. It was very successful and no problem. Actually, I know somebody who went to India and they had problems with their kidney and had to come back straight away. But luckily I didn’t have any problems.

That’s great. So you went back twice, and it’s a long journey on the plane -

Oh, a long journey and I stayed there for four weeks. We were there in October, no we went in, yes in October and November. Then again in January, February. Twice for four weeks, twice. I travelled and everything was fine.

That’s great. So you were fine on the plane. You were fine when you got there?

Oh yes. I was moving my cases a little, the hand luggage, we were putting them into the space overhead.

So you can do everything and you just take your tablets every day?

Oh yes. Maybe two months after the transplant, one of my trees over there, the cherry, the big one, that was dying and there were so many dead branches. I took the ladder, went up and sawed the dead branches. This was two months after the operation.
 

I went back to work after about I suppose a year, after a year I started doing a bit of work. And then two years I got a job again in the health service as a psychologist, and have been working since then. So working for the last six years. I work part time. And partly that’s because I’m not completely normally fit for my age. I do get more tired and I think that’s probably the medication, my age, and what I’ve been through. But I also want to leave time to do other stuff. So I’m very conscious of priorities.

And we’ve been to New Zealand twice, which was one thing I really wanted to do. And we’ve done lots of lovely holidays. And I’ve spent lots of time with my husband and with our family.
 

In the last few weeks, family, friends, people I don’t know terribly well, shop keepers, local people have been meeting me because I’ve managed to get out after all that snow and bad weather, are all telling me that I’m looking really good. And I must admit I feel really healthy for the first in a long, long time.

Which is just as well because I’ve got two wee grandsons and one’s four and the other one’s 19 months. And, without the transplant, I would never have seen them. And they really light up my life so much.

I don’t have the energy sometimes to crawl about the floor, but you do it. You do it because they’re such a joy. And they just lift your spirits and make you feel so glad to be alive that, you know. The work I do supporting other people, my grandchildren, my own family, are just being a tremendous support to me.
 

It was quite strange actually having been a very active person, and then had to resign myself to not being an active person, even though I was like late twenties, early thirties. I was acting like a fifty-year-old person, twenty years my age, or older than I was. And that was quite difficult. I think more for myself than anybody else because that’s not what you imagine or envision life to be.

After my transplant it was quite remarkable actually. I still believe it was a miracle transplant, for all kinds of reasons and the doctor said, “My goodness, you’ve kicked back, almost from day one after the ten days that it didn’t kick in.” And I felt that my energy levels peaked even more than before my illness. And so I was quite hyperactive almost, wanting to do this, wanting, maybe trying to make up for lost time in a way.

But I just wanted to do this, go here, go there, go there, and nothing was a barrier. So I didn’t feel sleepy at all. In fact I didn’t need, forget about not needing naps in the afternoon. I used to just sleep for six or seven hours and that was enough. While when I was healthy I needed my eight hours sleep.

So there was a lot of energy, a lot of drive and everything else. And I believe that’s because it’s a super kidney that’s been given to me by my gracious God really. I’ve had very, very few side effects. I’m on very, very low medication through these fifteen years and I just give thanks that that is the case.

But yes it was an emotional high in a way, and I was trying to get everybody on that high as well. “Look I’m healthy, let's do this, let’s do that.” So the last, after the transplant in the fifteen years, I’ve probably been more productive than I was in the first thirty years of my life.
 

I was diagnosed in 2005, and I became an advocate in 2006 for ‘Live Life then Give Life’. And it wasn’t just so that, I wasn’t just being selfish so that I would get my call and I would get my transplant. But it was just to help other people get their second chance at life, to make sure that people signed the Organ Donor Register.

The statistics then were 400 people die every year waiting for a transplant, and now it’s a thousand people die every year. I mean that’s just in four years that that figure has changed by 600 people extra dying a year because not enough transplants are available.

So I think the figures really hit home, and I wanted to do something about it. And even if I’m a very small fish in a very big ocean, but even if I could just get one more person to sign up a year, then that would make a difference to me. That would be an improvement to me.

Yeah. And you mentioned you found it helpful speaking to other people on the internet? What kind of questions and support did other people in a similar situation give you?

They gave me the advice was just be positive basically. They said the same thing. They said, be positive and not sit back and not think about it too much.

I mean I would ask questions, like medical questions about my treatment. But then people on the forums or people on the internet would ask emotional questions as well. And there was always someone there to answer the questions, whether it would be through ‘Live Life then Give Life’, through the Kidney Patient Guide, which I found really useful, that’s a forum on the internet. There was always someone there to answer a question. There’s always someone at the end of a telephone, so just talk to someone and don’t just sit on your own and worry about things.