I have been a blood donor since I left school. I worked on a large industrial site where the collection was conveniently arranged on site, with the benefit of free biscuits and a break from work. I always carried a battered organ donation card and had registered as a bone marrow donor as well, although bone marrow donation always sounded a little worrying to me.
I knew about Kidney donation and had heard of altruistic donation, although originally I thought it was only a thing in the USA. However, after hearing a Clare Balding radio programme with an early altruistic non-directed donor, I decided to investigate living kidney donation.
The donor who spoke on the radio, who I thought was a doctor and so well informed, was clear that he considered the risks were minimal and fully recovered from the operation with no lasting effects. When I relistened to the programme recently, it turns out he was a vet and his knowledge was based on experience with horses: fortunately I did do my own additional, more relevant research!
I researched a wide range of sources about the risks from the UK and other countries. A primary objective of my work in the engineering world has been risk reduction, so I’m used to evaluating risk in a structured way, using numbers if available. Although, it was novel to be consciously doing something that does increase risk by a small amount, in crude numerical form the benefits for recipients massively outweighed short-term inconvenience and risk to me.
In practice, my decision to donate was emotional and heartfelt. My immediate family has been lucky to have excellent health; however, many close relations, friends and colleagues have been saved by excellent and miraculous modern health care in the UK. So, although I have not had immediate contact with kidney disease, the opportunity to donate just made sense. I would no doubt donate to a relation or friend, so why not another member of the community?
During my research, I had discovered the benefits of a non-directed donation, in enabling further donations where donors did not match their intended recipients, which I found both intriguing and encouraging. So I took the simple first step and contacted my local donor transplant centre.
I was very nervous visiting a hospital, as I had never visited one as a patient. From the initial administrative contact onwards through the extensive tests, Leigh the transplant nurse was very clear and helpful. I never seemed to have a long wait for the various tests. The only frustration was that I wasn’t allowed to watch the screen during tests: unlike pregnancy scans, you don’t get a picture to take home and have to wait for the results.
I was worried about telling my family, until I had passed all the tests – and then I was worried about their reaction, when I told them late in the process. Fortunately, while they were surprised, my family were all very supportive. One relation, a very experienced and wise doctor, did challenge me robustly, to test that I had really thought through my donation decision. Although an exception, one close friend who I greatly respect clearly didn’t really understand my decision and found it odd. In addition to the very thorough evaluation by the hospital as part of the formal donation process, I found these challenges understandable and useful in prompting me to reconsider and reconfirm my decision.
My donation was in early 2022 and I was part of a ‘chain’. The risk at the time of catching COVID required isolation and was slightly inconvenient. I worried that catching COVID would delay all the operations in the chain. After my initial blood testing for a match, I was called in again for more testing. I think it needed an intimidating 12 different samples, which Leigh handled like a conjuror, whilst I wondered how we could possibly match so many tests. But we did!
The operation went fine, despite my trepidation about general anaesthetic and all the warnings of discomfort. Although I found the stay in hospital okay, I was keen to leave after the second day because there was a patient in my ward who only ate ice-cream while I never got any. However, a nurse pointed out that leaving hospital would stop the strong painkillers, so waited and I went home after three days.
