You wouldn’t know it from looking at my photos. You probably wouldn’t be able to tell if you met me in real life either, but I am a double transplant recipient. I am the blessed recipient of a new kidney and pancreas. (We celebrated our sixth “transplantversary” on October 21, 2024.)
After an 18-year battle with type 1 diabetes, combined with a severe case of salmonella, I was told that I would need to have a kidney transplant.
I was initially offered two options: option one – just a kidney transplant; option two – a combined kidney and pancreas transplant.
The second option came with much higher risks but also much higher rewards as it hopefully meant curing the diabetes at the same time. I went with the latter.
Pre-transplant, I wasn’t living. I was merely existing. It was hard, exhausting and draining, quite literally.
Before I had my transplant, I was subjected to daily home dialysis sessions. I had a tube inserted into my stomach, which was then attached to bags of fluid that would have to drain in and out of my body every eight hours. As horrendous as this sounds, in reality, it was even worse. However, it did keep me alive for just over a year while I waited for that much-needed call for a transplant.
Dialysis, combined with being so chronically ill, hits you every which way; mentally, physically and emotionally. It also wasn’t just impacting me; it was impacting my family.
So yes, I am alive today because of a man and his generosity, selflessness and desire to save a stranger.
This man, my donor, is someone I never met and will never get to meet. Yet, I only have my life because of him. He gave me my life back when he wasn’t in a position to live his own.
I feel like I’ve lived a life of two halves, and I’m only in my thirties.
I’ve lived my pre-transplant life, where I was, literally, just about existing from a hospital bed on 10 South, the renal ward at the Royal Free Hospital.
Now, I’m thriving in my post-transplant era, where I can honestly say that I’m living my best life.
My life is everything I never thought it would be – exhausting, chaotic, sometimes stressful. But it’s also full. It’s beautiful and filled with all the things I once could only dream about. It’s exhausting because I have a new baby. It’s chaotic because I also have a dog. It’s full because I have a fiancé and a family. But moreover, I have my health and my future to live for.
I never wanted an extravagant life. Just a modest, happy, hospital-free one. A life that enabled me to do what normal people do – go to work, see friends, go out and not end up in an ambulance or in A&E – nothing too major, and things most people take for granted. For example, my transplant has enabled me to swap 8am dialysis sessions for 7am bottle feeds.
I’m attending morning baby groups rather than morning clinics. I’m visiting family abroad rather than staying on a gloomy hospital ward, and it’s amazing. Moreover, my transplant is the reason I get to be a mummy, a daughter, a fiancé, a sister and a friend.
I am fully aware that thinking and talking about death is sensitive. It’s depressing and sombre, but until you’re personally affected by organ donation, you don’t fully understand or appreciate how vital these conversations are.
Organ donation doesn’t just save an individual; it saves families and communities like our own. If my donor hadn’t had these conversations, I wouldn’t be here today, living – and sharing my story.
For more informatin on becoming an organ donor or to sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register, click here or visit: organdonation.nhs.uk or call: 0300 123 23 23
