Transplant gave me back my life

[okarol]

Transplant gave me back my life

By Helen Beighton
07 February 2008

Few people think about what will happen to their bodies after their death but thousands more patients could be given the gift of life if more people signed the donor register.
Proposals to boost the number of transplants by 1,200 a year have been backed by the Government but a system of 'presumed consent' – which would mean everyone would be a donor unless they chose to opt out instead of the current system of opting in – is still being discussed.

Helen Beighton reports on the experience of one Chesterfield family whose lives have been transformed by a transplant.

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For more than two years Michael Shaw spent much of his week wired up to a dialysis machine, too tired to walk his dog, unable to eat a decent meal and waiting for the hospital to call.

He was 44 when, in January 1998, the call finally came – a donor kidney had become available and Michael was to be given the chance to get his life back.

Michael, now 54, of Forest Drive, Pilsley, has an inherited, incurable condition called polycystic kidney disease. It causes fluid-filled cysts to develop in the kidneys which, in turn, causes kidney failure.

A transplant is the only long-term solution for sufferers.
Michael's condition was diagnosed about a decade before his life-saving surgery took place.

It was ten years in which his health slowly deteriorated, culminatin
g with him having to have long spells of dialysis.

"I gradually got worse and worse," he said.

"I lost my appetite, was on a special diet, didn't want to do much and was tired all the time.

"My body was being poisoned slowly by the toxins and I was even changing colour, going a yellowy-brown colour.

"Dialysis was tiring in itself.

"Initially, I was hoping they could find a donor quickly, which would solve my problems, but as time went on I pushed it to the back of my mind and got into a routine, getting on dialysis and then feeling better for a bit afterwards."

Death's door

The dialysis treatment was vital to keep Michael alive but was time-consuming and limited the time he could spend with his wife Jean and children, Christopher (32), Dawn (30) and Lee (23).

Jean (52) said: "It was very difficult. You cannot keep a family life really at all.

http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/features/Transplant-gave-me-back-my.3757727.jp