Husband’s kidney is gift of new life

Husband’s kidney is gift of new life
By Sam McGregor

WHEN Steve Dancer first met his future wife Sarah at a barbecue she didn’t think he was her type. But crucially – medically in this case – he is exactly her type.

Now they are preparing for surgery to donate one of Mr Dancer’s kidney’s to his sick wife at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital in two weeks’ time.

Mrs Dancer, 38, was diagnosed in May with renal failure but was told the odds on finding a donor she knew would be slim.Her 44-year-old husband, a printer, volunteered to be considered as a donor and came up as a match.

Mrs Dancer said: “I’m extremely lucky as within eight months of diagnosis I’m getting a kidney, which is absolutely amazing.

“Genetically we are complete strangers, but I was living under the same roof with the man who was the complete match. I know people who have been waiting 15 years for a transplant. Me and Steve getting together was a blind date.

“I went to a barbecue and said he’s not my type, how wrong was I?

“He’s the perfect match.”

Mrs Dancer, a shop assistant manager at Bicester Village, had been feeling unwell for months, but did not think it was anything serious.

Her husband eventually persuaded her to go and see the doctor in May and she was given a series of blood tests.

She thought she might have mild diabetes, but days later the couple – who have been together for 11 years and married for six – were woken at 4am by a doctor banging at their door in Lapwing Close, Bicester, telling Mrs Dancer she had to get to the Horton Hospital immediately.

There she was told her kidneys were working at just five per cent. Healthy kidneys work at 90 per cent.

Mrs Dancer was referred to the renal unit at the Churchill Hospital and put on home dialysis straight away, while Mr Dancer was tested.

Now ready for the operation, the couple’s only worry is a financial one as they will both be off work for several months following surgery.

But nothing will stop Mr Dancer going through with the operation, even after doctors “scared” him by going through all the potential health complications.

He said: “A lot of people are saying ‘do you know what you are doing?’, but I just want my wife back.”

And with Christmas just around the corner, it will only be Mrs Dancer who has the problem of choosing the perfect present for her husband.

She said: “What do I get him for Christmas, he’s given me a new life. I can’t buy him a jumper when he’s given me a kidney.”

A National Blood and Transplant Service spokesman said the match extremely unusual and very rare.

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