Organ donation

The next thing I knew it was Tuesday morning. I woke up and I said, “When are you going to do the transplant or have you done it?” or something. And they said, “It’s all done.” And I’ve got some very odd memories of being in intensive care, just sort of disassociated memories. I remember talking Greek to some of the nurses because I’d been learning Greek. They said I was speaking Greek quite well, under a haze of morphine. And I remember having a bath… someone washing me. And I can remember telling one of the doctors what an arrogant little sod he was, obviously my true personality coming out, times of stress.

And then the next thing I knew it was Tuesday morning and they were waking me up and saying do I want any breakfast. I felt absolutely dreadful. And I felt, “Awgh,” poisoned and horrible and I had big tubes coming out of my, drain, chest drains in, enormous tubes coming out of my chest and wires coming out of my neck, and wires coming out of both arms. And they said, “Right, stand up.” And other things like that. So I had to stand up.

In intensive care?

Yes. It was just the end of intensive care. And I had to stand up and walk over and sit in the chair. Then I had to get into a wheelchair. And it was all a big palaver, and I was feeling dreadful.
 

I remember waking up in the intensive care and I could see everybody. I was like in a big room on my own, and there was doctors in there and machines. And there was nurses running around and I’m just sat there looking. And this nurse turned round to me, and, “What are you doing awake?” But I’d obviously got the ventilator in. And they asked the doctor to come and see me and I was doing fine. And then I just looked to my left and my Mum was there behind the glass partition. She was crying. So I put my thumb up, as you know, as if to say, “Don’t cry.” And I’d always said to myself that the first time I saw my Mum afterwards, no matter whether there were a ventilator there or not, I would tell her that I loved her.

She didn’t cry for long because she was happy to see that I looked different. And her first words to me were, “Your lips are pink.” Because they’d always been blue. My cheeks, my nose, my lips, my hands, my legs, everything was blue. And I lifted my hand up. I remember just lifting my hand up and seeing my hand pink, which I’d never seen before. And it was a feeling of overwhelming surprise because I didn’t realise a transplant would change so much, so quickly. I knew why I was blue because of my oxygen levels and things and my illness, but the transplant just, it just changed it more or less straightaway.
 

It started working when it was transplanted. However, within a day, or even less than a day, a few hours after the transplant occurred, it slept. It just stopped functioning, which was a real cause of concern to me but apparently less to the medical staff even though at that time, medical records later on that I discovered, my creatinine was 2600. The norm is 100 for a man. So it was way above and medical records have proven that I was five days from dying if things weren’t fixed.

And that was a great cause of concern, even though my doctor kept telling me, “Look, I’ve got 100% track record. I’m not going to spoil my reputation because of you.” Which was slightly comforting but worrying as well. And that was quite difficult. Having been through an operation, having been unhealthy and obviously the toxins are continuing to build in your body. Of course, being in a hospital and not being able to eat what you want and be with your children. I had two young children, four and just under two at that time. And that was a very difficult time, being separated from family because we have a very close family.

Day seven I particularly remember as one of my darkest days in my life where I remember telling my wife who came to visit every day, “Look, that’s it. I’ve had enough. I’ve been ill. I’ve gone through this operation, been cut open and all these tubes coming out. Just why don’t you do me a favour. I think we’ve got enough savings to keep you going, to have a normal life, the house etcetera. Just pull out one of these plugs because I’m ready to die. Dying would be better than this.”

And that was difficult. That was very, very difficult. And I’m a strong believer and I have a strong faith, and I knew there were hundreds of people praying for me. Not just in this country but some of the other countries that we’d been in. And that gave me a bit of reassurance to keep going, as did my wife as well. And it was day nine actually that the kidney started to get better.
 

The operation went well, and I was recovering and I was about to be released home. I was sitting in my room, I think it was 10 days after the operation, when I felt a horrendous pain in my hip. I can’t remember whether it was left or right now, and I’ve never felt anything like it. It struck me down basically. I managed to crawl onto the bed and press the buzzer and people came in. And gradually the severity of it dawned on the nursing staff and doctors.

The pain was brought under control, you know I was given painkillers. And then that was the final assessment after a couple of hours was made, and it was decided that I needed to be seen. So I was taken down to the operating theatre and put under anaesthetic. And then woke up four or five hours later to find that they’d removed the kidney.  Because I’d had an aneurysm, there was an infection which had put a hole in one of the main arteries in my hip. And they reckoned that if that was repaired, but they couldn’t risk the kidney because the infection had obviously come from the kidney, they couldn’t risk it happening again.