cool!! 
Dad’s donation of a lifetime 23 Feb 10 @ 07:00am by Shaun Campbell
BRAD Smith is looking forward to heading out for a few days of camping with his mates later this year.
The 32-year-old Ringwood man has had to spend nine hours a day at home on dialysis since one of his kidneys failed 15 months ago.
Brad, a casual construction labourer, used to enjoy getting out of Melbourne for five days at a time to ride his dirtbike and fish with his mates.
He will be able to do so again when his father, Lyall, donates a kidney later this year.
Lyall travelled from northern Victoria to Melbourne last week for blood and kidney function tests.
The Robinvale resident said doctors had given him the all-clear to donate.
“When his (Brad’s) kidney failed, it came as a shock,” Lyall said.
“The whole family went through tissue matching and my wife and I were the closest match.”
Lyall, 55, said losing a kidney was “a small price to pay” for giving his son “a better quality of life”.
“All I will have to do is have regular function tests and become a non-smoker,” he said.
But Brad said he was “in two minds” when Lyall first brought up the subject of donation.
“It is a pretty big procedure so I was going to go on the waiting list, which is about seven years,” Brad said.
“But then I realised that I was lucky to have family offering me a kidney when heaps of people don’t.
“I knew I would feel guilty taking one off them when I didn’t have to.”
Brad said he now realised the importance of organ donation.
“If you had told me two years ago that I would need a kidney donation I would have laughed at you,” he said.
“It has opened up a few of my mates’ eyes and they have signed up to be an organ donor.”
This week is Organ Donor Awareness Week. To register as a donor, phone 1800 777 203 or go to medicareaustralia.gov.au. To find more details about donation, see donatelife.gov.au
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