Two Sides to the Story

Today I was due to see the Oxford Renal Transplant team about the possibility of me having a kidney & pancreas transplant (SKP). They come to my local hospital to see me and a few others who are either waiting for a transplant or hoping to get onto the list. I received a call this morning to cancel the appointment due to the team being involved in an emergency transplant at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. I was a bit annoyed, since I had cancelled a routine Renal appointment to be able to fit the Oxford appointment in. But these things can't be predicted and the cancellation was not a problem for me, as the local Renal consultant reviewed my blood tests over the phone, telling me that my kidney output is now the best it's been for 7 years and nothing needs changing, meaning that I don't need to see them next week.

My first thought was that someone was about to get one of the best Christmas gifts that they could ever hope for. Realistically though, the patient is likely to be quite sedated and will miss Christmas and their family will have to cope with a lot of additional worry and stress. And then of course, there is a family somewhere that has just received the worst possible news. Unlike a kidney transplant where the donor can survive perfectly well having given the organ, the pancreas must come from a cadaver (dead body) and, in most cases, this is likely to be the result of a fatal accident. And this time of the year is generally quite a busy time for SKP transplants.

So, while we as transplant survivors or hopeful receivers, prepare to celebrate this Christmas, it is worth remembering those people who have suffered a loss for those operations to go ahead day in and day out. Without the generous donors and their families, the whole transplant system would not be possable.