People don’t understand how ill I am
The road to a transplant is never an easy one, and that is sadly the case for Richard too. His younger sister has been tested and, unfortunately, she is not an exact donor match, and neither is his partner. “People don’t realise how ill I actually am,” he says. “I think it’s going to take when I’m lying in intensive care with weeks to live or something for people to really see that.”
Richard remains optimistic by taking part in a paired donation scheme. Donor-recipient pairs who are incompatible and unable to donate directly to each other are added to a national register to receive a compatible transplant with another pair when one becomes available. He explains: “There’s a scheme where my partner would make her kidneys available and then somewhere down the country somebody will have a kidney available and then we all do a swap. It’s promising but it’s really slow. We’ve been going for 18 months now.”
He adds: “I would love to think that if I ever got a transplant I would go back to work and have a reason for getting out of bed in the morning.”
Richard remains comfortable on haemodialysis and is keeping his fingers crossed for an upcoming meeting with the transplant team at his local hospital.
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- Source: https://www.kidneyresearchuk.org/2024/03/18/i-thought-my-high-blood-pressure-was-down-to-my-weight-turns-out-it-was-my-kidneys/