exciting, anxious times
Jul. 19th, 2008 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaMy cousin Gavin had a kidney transplant last night.
Gavin was born with only one kidney, and it was withered and had to be removed almost immediately. His parents - my Mum's stepbrother and his wife, Rob and Ann - were told he probably wouldn't live more than a few months. He is now 29 years old. He had two transplants as a child. One failed almost immediately. The other lasted almost five years. He called it Fred, and was devastated when it failed, when he was 12. Those few short years were the closest he ever came to having a normal life. He refused to go back on the transplant register for years afterward, because you can only ever have three of the same transplants, so this third one is It. It's the last chance. So he didn't want to go back on the list for the longest time because if he had this third transplant and it didn't work, he would never have another chance, and he didn't want to lose that hope. And he has some kind of weird blood type, or antibodies or something, so that no one in the family was a good enough match.
This new kidney now isn't a perfect match. But the consultants and specialists all agreed that it is the closest match they are ever going to find. I don't want to think about who it came from. I can't think about who it came from. It is too soon to say if the transplant will hold, so desperately hoping that is does is the priority right now.
No one ever thought Gavin would live as long as he has. He's the sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet, and I really wish I got to see more of him. The years and years of dialysis have taken an enormous physical toll on him. He never grew taller than five foot. He has had countless infections and blockages and surgeries from minor to major - his arms are a patchwork of scars, and swellings that never go down. In the last few years he's been finding it harder and harder to walk more than a couple of hundred yards at a time, and has to use a wheelchair quite often. He struggled to get through school, and has never been able to work, because of being tied to dialysis three times a week. If this operation works, if the transplant is a success, it will make the most enormous difference to his life - he will get to actually have a life. If it is a success.
Please keep Gavin in your thoughts in the next few days and weeks.
Gavin was born with only one kidney, and it was withered and had to be removed almost immediately. His parents - my Mum's stepbrother and his wife, Rob and Ann - were told he probably wouldn't live more than a few months. He is now 29 years old. He had two transplants as a child. One failed almost immediately. The other lasted almost five years. He called it Fred, and was devastated when it failed, when he was 12. Those few short years were the closest he ever came to having a normal life. He refused to go back on the transplant register for years afterward, because you can only ever have three of the same transplants, so this third one is It. It's the last chance. So he didn't want to go back on the list for the longest time because if he had this third transplant and it didn't work, he would never have another chance, and he didn't want to lose that hope. And he has some kind of weird blood type, or antibodies or something, so that no one in the family was a good enough match.
This new kidney now isn't a perfect match. But the consultants and specialists all agreed that it is the closest match they are ever going to find. I don't want to think about who it came from. I can't think about who it came from. It is too soon to say if the transplant will hold, so desperately hoping that is does is the priority right now.
No one ever thought Gavin would live as long as he has. He's the sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet, and I really wish I got to see more of him. The years and years of dialysis have taken an enormous physical toll on him. He never grew taller than five foot. He has had countless infections and blockages and surgeries from minor to major - his arms are a patchwork of scars, and swellings that never go down. In the last few years he's been finding it harder and harder to walk more than a couple of hundred yards at a time, and has to use a wheelchair quite often. He struggled to get through school, and has never been able to work, because of being tied to dialysis three times a week. If this operation works, if the transplant is a success, it will make the most enormous difference to his life - he will get to actually have a life. If it is a success.
Please keep Gavin in your thoughts in the next few days and weeks.
