My inspiration

I have often been asked why I wanted to donate my kidney - at all, let alone to a stranger. Some people genuinely struggle to understand.

This conversation actually happened again recently and I thought I would share my experience here in the hope that it helps someone else get their head around the objections - and maybe even volunteer to get assessed.

It seems clear that you need a certain view on the purpose of life and of what's possible. Looking back, it seems that doing what others have considered 'unusual' has actually not been that unusual.
With Maggie's collusion, my life has been littered with similar waywardness and yet I seem to have found a way to be ‘not normal’ - but do the demonstrably doable.

So now, given that donating a kidney to a complete stranger isn’t seen as normal, a string of deeply personal happenings and realisations were needed to lead me into taking that path, with an ultimate conclusion that it was my duty to at least give it a go. I think my Dad would have approved.

Fact 1: Plenty of people live perfectly healthy lives with only one  kidney - either because they were born that way (a surprisingly high number) or they’ve had a transplant to replace their diseased ones. Or, indeed, plenty of people have donated before me, and have remained perfectly healthy. 

Fact 2:  There are currently over 7000 kidney patients on the transplant register. To be that bad, the measure of their kidneys' effectiveness has to be around 10, when it should be nearer 100.

Fact 3: On average in the UK, 2 people die each day for the lack of a compatible donor and for whom the last weeks, months or even years of their lives have been painful and difficult beyond words.

Fact 4: Receiving a transplant from a live donor (rather than a deceased one) significantly improves the success and the quality of the transplant and thus the recipient's life, both short and long term.

So, I concluded, if the exhaustive testing by the hospital team showed that my health was good enough - for me generally and my two kidneys in particular - why wouldn’t I give the chance of hope, and a healthy life, to someone who could otherwise die a miserable and painful death? 

Donating may not be seen as normal, but maybe it should.

Even if it’s to a stranger? That's where many people say that they would draw the line. But..........

A stranger? So what?

If you’d give a kidney to a member of your family, or your best friend - why not to someone else’s mother or brother or whatever? What really makes the relationship different? What if that desperately ill person - on dialysis three or more times a week - was you? What if that person was your family, or your friend? You'd be desperate for any help, wouldn't you?

Indeed, might it even be that, as a result of your gift to this 'stranger', you’d make the best friend you never knew you had?  From what my recipient wrote to me after the transplant, I believe I did. Do you have to be religious to believe in the concept of being a Good Samaritan?

But then, I've heard people say, what about your responsibility to your family? What if they ever needed a kidney?
Well, that's a judgement call - my age, their age, their health and the family history all came into the equation, plus the knowledge that I might actually not be compatible (as indeed I am not for at least one son. He could possibly donate to me, but not me to him)

Perhaps finally, what do I get out of it?

Apart from a strong sense of satisfaction with how it has turned out, I know from the exhaustive testing that I underwent at the QAHospital that the internal workings of my body are in pretty good shape, and I have now annual checkups and the personal support of the Nurse Coordinators at the QAH for the rest of my life. For me, with the added support of my GP,  that's priceless.

So there you have it. If this hugely summarised explanation helps you to steel yourself into finding out more and to consider getting assessed, then GREAT. Don't delay! You can do it!

(Please feel free to contact me with any questions).

As to undertaking this challenge, my inspiration stems from not just an inbuilt desire to test and stretch my personal boundaries, but, by supporting Kidney Research UK, I hope to honour every sufferer and every carer, and everyone who's working to understand and address the many causes of kidney disease:

People like my kidney transplant recipient;

People like the fabulous Kidney Donor Support and surgery Teams at the QAH in Portsmouth (and their counterparts around the country)

Plus the brilliant, pioneering staff at Kidney Research UK;

And let's not forget the many - but still too few - Living Donors who have freely given up their 'spare' yet desperately needed kidney -  to save someone's life. Literally.

Yes folks, if you need it, there is proof around you that one kidney is enough to live life to the full!

Let's make it normal.