John’s story

I think there is possibly an altruistic gene which I’ve inherited from my mother, a regular blood donor and inveterate helper of family and friends. In the autumn of 2017 I read an article in a national paper written by a woman who had given a kidney to someone she didn’t know. I suddenly knew where my own altruistic urges should be directed.

I spent the earlier part of my life trying to succeed in various fields – including acting – and eventually coming to terms with the difficult questions about what makes one’s life worthwhile. I moved from an inward-looking concern with ambition to be realised, to an outward view as to what might help other people.

Having been inspired by the newspaper piece, I mulled it over. My son was awaiting his A levels results and I needed time to discuss with my partner and family my growing conviction that donation was something I had a moral imperative to do.

At an event for the charity Give a Kidney, I talked to a kidney recipient who had been on dialysis every night for six long years. The organ he received from an unknown donor gave him back 85% of his life and meant he could see his three sons grow up. Cue immediate emotional response. If I had questioned my motivation to donate before, this story certainly nailed my commitment.

My actual donation was a breeze! The confidence I felt in the team at Guy’s, from my coordinator to the surgeon, meant that fear was never part of the equation. The operation went smoothly, and I was out of hospital in four days and back to full strength in a few weeks. The only after effect was a boost to my self-esteem!

As a lover of the English language and a sometime poet, I feel that some lines from Tennyson’s Ulysses sum up the wish to do something worthwhile in our otherwise unremarkable lives:

“Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note may yet be done.”