Organ donation

The hospital told me not long afterwards that they’d heard the recipient was doing fine, which was good. And then I got a phone call several weeks later from my co-ordinator [specialist nurse] saying, “I’ve got a letter sitting here.” Oh, “from your recipient. Would you like it?” I said, “Yes please.” I said, “Wait, yes, but read it first. What if it gets lost in the post? You know, read it.”

We were both in tears, we really were. I mean yes they thanked me very much, said what a special person I was and I’ll always be in their thoughts. They can now start to live as a family again. But what got me, and even though I’ve only got to hear the word, that’s all I think of, was at the end of it they said, “I feel fantastic.” Not, “I’m feeling well,” or, “I’m okay.” But, “I feel fantastic.” That one word told me everything I needed to know, that they weren’t struggling to cope with the new kidney. They weren’t whatever, they were feeling fantastic. That just said everything to me, that’s all I wanted to know. And that was brilliant.

I wrote back and thanked them for the letter, and said I was just over the moon that they felt so fantastic. It was more than I could have hoped for. And that they’re always in my prayers and thoughts. And that I hope that they have a long, happy, healthy life ahead of them.
 

Initially, I was told that it was functioning very well. They never told me who it was or whatever. But then I got a message about a month later from the person who had it, with his Christian name. Saying that he was feeling ever so much better because he’d been on dialysis for quite a long time and going downhill, getting less strong and getting more tired and whatever. And I think he’d just had, his first grandchild had just been born.

So I sent a message back, “Well I’m sure you’ll get, I’m glad you’ll really be able to enjoy your grandchild, and your grandchild will really be able to enjoy your company.” And I haven’t heard from him since then, other than that apparently he’s very well and doing a lot of sailing, which makes me rather jealous [laughs].

And was this via a letter?

It was… he sent the message to the transplant co-ordinator [specialist nurse], and she typed it out or sent it onto me anyway. So it was just signed, “Thank you very much. This, this, this and then his Christian name at the end. And I haven’t been, I said that if, to the co-ordinator I said, “Look, if it’s of any help, then I’m quite happy to make contact with him or meet him or whatever. But I don’t particularly want to because the principle was that I just put in the pool, put the kidney in the pool and whoever needs it most and is going to get the best benefit from it, that’s the wonderful thing about the NHS, that you can trust them to do that.

Yes. And when you replied to his message was that something you, you spoke to the co-ordinator over the phone and she wrote it down, or did you write it?

I wrote it down and sent it to the co-ordinator.

Yes. And,

I thought it was quite important to get it, got to get it right, because you don’t want to in any way reduce the enjoyment of life for the recipient and their families.
 

The process is quite explicit in that you do not know who your recipient is. You cannot know who they are. And you must not know who they are for it to be a truly non-directed donation. So that much is very...

Afterwards, there is a possibility obviously that people will get in contact, and some pairs of people have done so. I’ve had a letter from my recipient. It was a very nice letter but I’ve not, from my own point of view, felt that it was necessary to get in touch with them.

And I’ve not heard any more from them. I didn’t even reply to the letter in fact, so I don’t see that as being a relationship that we need to encourage or foster or look at. But I mean, again, different people may feel very differently and I think if the recipient had felt very strongly that they wanted to make some sort of contact, I wouldn’t have been discouraging necessarily. But I think it’s very, very much up to them to decide what they would like to do.

I don’t want a kind of relationship where they feel beholden to me in any way. I didn’t do it for them as an individual, because I obviously didn’t know them beforehand. So I did it as a general gift to the population as it were, and to some extent, and well to a large extent I did it for myself because I felt it was the right thing to do. So that somebody benefitted obviously is important, but precisely who that is, is not an issue.

People did raise with me the possibility, you know, what would you feel like if you had known that it had gone to somebody whose morality or somebody who was, you know a prisoner who’d done all sorts of horrible things and was a criminal. And really that doesn’t bother me at all the thought that, you know, I accept that the way in which kidneys are allocated. They’re sort of, the system that ensures that there is a degree of fairness, of course it’s never perfect fairness. It’s not fair that some people get kidney failure in the first place. But tries to ensure that there is a national list as it were, and the next person on the list gets it. I leave it to them to decide really. And I was very happy that that process was taking place.
 

I’m aware my kidney, well my kidney’s gone to a woman in her forties. Apparently, that’s all I know, who was on dialysis.

And did you ever want more information on the recipient?

I’d love to know more but I’m not allowed to. I was allowed, they said I could write to her but I thought well that’s not really fair, that puts her under great… Why do I want to write to her? Do I want a letter back full of, “Oh thank you so much, it’s changed my life.” That puts a heck of a lot of pressure on her. I would love to hear from her, whether I do or not is up to her. And something I didn’t realise, but of course it’s a big thing for her to have been given an organ by a living person. And she may feel, “Oh my God, I’ve got to live up to this now,” which is a lot of pressure that I don’t want to put on her. So. No.

And she’d been on dialysis before then,

Apparently so.

Did you hear about her welfare afterwards?

I’ve just been told that the kidney is working and her kidney values have come down, so it’s working well. The last I heard was a week or so ago, apparently she’s still doing fine. So that’s all I know.