Blood treatment saves dad of fourArticle from: Sunday Herald Sun
Suellen Hinde
January 13, 2008 12:00am
A LOVING father has a new chance at life after a pioneering medical technique enabled his wife to donate her kidney despite their blood being incompatible.
Doctors at Royal Melbourne Hospital have developed a treatment involving plasma exchange to allow kidney transplants between people with different blood types.
And after almost six years attached to a dialysis machine waiting for a new kidney, Steve Lowry, 49, said his successful transplant proved no one should give up hope.
"You have just got to hang in there," the Ballarat father of four said.
"You never know what's around the corner."
Royal Melbourne Hospital Prof Rowan Walker said it was the only major hospital nationwide to be doing such transplants, completing 26 in the past two years.
Mr Lowry developed nephritis - inflammation of the kidneys - which resulted in end-stage kidney disease, after a viral infection.
For three days a week, five hours a day, he was attached to a dialysis machine.
"It was a huge change to mine and the family's lifestyle," he said.
Mr Lowry joined 1400 others on the kidney transplant waiting list. But by chance, he and his wife, Kandra, heard about the hospital's work with incompatible blood types.
"We have not looked back," Mr Lowry said. "I have never felt better."
Mrs Lowry said after 22 years of marriage her organ donation was "no big deal".
About 30 per cent of live donors are thwarted by blood type incompatibility and more than 40 Australians die each day from kidney disease.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23043753-2862,00.html
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