transplant week 2011

Carla Maclean

Meet Carla – her husband donated a kidney to save her life. Stay tuned for Pete’s story.

It's been a year since my second kidney transplant. I suffered from glomerulonephritis when I was a teenager which led to my kidneys failing at the age of 19. When I was 21 I received my first kidney transplant, which allowed me to live a normal life until I was in my mid-30s. When the transplant failed I returned to dialysis.

Dialysis is a difficult thing to go through, but it's also difficult for your family. You are often too tired and ill to go anywhere or do anything, friends can fall away as they never see you, and some people just don't understand or want to be around a sick person, so it can be a very isolating experience. You can't eat what you want, your fluid intake is restricted to a miniscule amount - you're constantly at risk of serious illness or death. 

We stopped planning things while I was on dialysis, it was too hard constantly having to cancel planned days out or meals - even our wedding was almost ruined by my illness! I was taken into hospital the night before with peritonitis, a common problem in peritoneal dialysis, where you have to constantly run fluids in and out of a tube in your stomach. I had to beg the hospital staff to let me go home the next day in order to get married! I missed all my hair and beauty appointments and got to the ceremony with minutes to spare, but I made it - just!

Peter - my husband - has been amazing throughout. He wanted to donate a kidney to me, but wasn't a match, so when we were offered the chance of paired donation, he jumped at the chance. A paired donation is where the donor gives to another person in exchange for their donor giving to you - in essence a 'kidney swap! I wasn't so sure, secretly I had been relieved when he wasn't a match, it meant he wouldn't go through an unnecessary operation with all the risks that it entails. He however, was adamant and the turning point came when a surgeon asked me if I would do the same thing, and I realised that I wouldn't think twice about it. That was when I relented.

Peter donated a kidney to another person and I received a kidney in a live organ donor transplantation on 2nd June 2010 and we haven't looked back.  I am doing really well, despite taking heavy doses of immunosupressants to stop the kidney rejecting- taking tablets - even 45 a day is a walk in the park compared to dialysis.

In August this year I will be competing in the UK Transplant games in Belfast in the archery event. I will be dressed as a medieval Norman female archer to honour my historical re-enactment group Regia Anglorum, members of which were hugely supportive of me during my illness.

Signing the NHS Organ Donor Register shouldn't be something you have to think too much about. It takes two minutes and requires no commitment or further action, chances are you'll never be needed; you're more likely to need a transplanted organ, but what a gift to leave a seriously ill person - a second chance of life.

If you would like to sponsor me at the transplant games this year please go to my Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/CarlaPhillips13

What are you waiting for, sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register today.