Jackie chose to donate a kidney to someone she didn’t know after she had retired. Here she shares her experience.
After exceedingly thorough tests, and a wait, I was finally given a date for my kidney donation operation. A mixture of feelings – excitement, it was going to happen at last, and also some trepidation – would it be painful; how would I feel the first time being in hospital for 50 years; how would my husband cope with looking after me when I came out?
Was it painful – honestly, yes at times it was, but the painkillers helped enormously, hospital felt very strange and getting five portions of fruit and veg in hospital food was challenging (but just possible) and my husband was amazingly competent and caring – I knew he would be really, but it was a worry for him.
The first fortnight wasn’t always easy, recovery wasn’t a straight upward course, but the first walk outside in the sunshine four days after I came home was wonderful. Listening to my body about how much I could do and what I should eat or drink became a way of life. Small gains each day, the first meal prepared from scratch, the first uninterrupted night’s sleep – bliss!
Little by little I could do more, an hour at the computer a day developed into 2 hours and a 10-minute walk a day rapidly became an hour. The advice was not to go back to work for six weeks – not a problem since I was retired, but I started to attend voluntary organisation meetings and do the associated work after a fortnight.
I could have coped with full-time work after six weeks, but I think I would have been very tired. Realistically, I felt totally fit and back to my old self after two months. Occasionally now solicitous friends ask me how I feel and I think, ‘why are they asking’ and I have to remind myself I’ve had a major operation. The biggest compliment was when one friend, who had always been reluctant to register as a donor, said she had been inspired by what I had done and had now signed the organ donor register.
A few days of tests, and three weeks of some discomfort and enforced rest are not a high price to pay to give another person a hugely improved quality of life, and perhaps a greater quantity of years.
I would I do it again in a heartbeat!
