Posted on: Saturday, 3 February 2007, 18:00 CST
Kidney That Just Keeps on GoingA LORRY driver has defied the odds to keep a transplanted kidney for 30 years.
Transplanted organs normally need to be replaced after about ten years, but the one given to Andrew Williams is still going strong.
Mr Williams, 47, suffered kidney failure at 14 and had a transplant at Bristol's Southmead Hospital three years later.
He said: 'I couldn't play football or run around and for years my dad had carried me upstairs because I couldn't walk.
'As soon as I woke up after the transplant, I felt I could run a marathon, I had so much energy.' Now Mr Williams, from Westbury-on- Severn, Gloucestershire, hopes to trace the family of the donor.
He said: 'All I know is that the donor lived in London. I think the family would like to know that good came out of tragedy.' Kay Hamilton, a kidney transplant co-ordinator at Southmead Hospital, said: 'When you consider that thirty years ago we didn't have all the techniques and drugs that we have available today, it is extraordinary that Andrew's kidney has lasted this long.'
(c) 2007 Daily Mail; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)
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