IN a world where transplant patients are left waiting for a new heart or liver, it can be easy to think of kidney transplants being somewhere further down the list of priorities.

But for two Oxfordshire people it took huge sacrifices – in one case from a loved one and in another from a stranger – to allow them to return to full health.

Sam Rose received her new kidney from a deceased donor almost 20 years ago, while Kevin Beach was given his by his partner last year – and both have backed the Oxford Mail’s campaign to get more people to register as donors.

Ms Rose was living near Pusey in South Oxfordshire when she was diagnosed with renal failure in 1994 at the age of 12.

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She said: “I was in hospital for what seemed like the whole school holiday but looking back it might not have been that long.

“At the end of the summer I was on dialysis known as CAPD, which means you have a tube put into your tummy and fluid goes into abdomen.

“That goes in three times a day and is drained three times a day. My mum would do that for me in the morning and then at lunchtime and we would take it in turns in the evening.”

Just over a year later in October 1995, she received a kidney from a deceased donor and has been in perfect health ever since.

The Oxford University solicitor, 32, said: “I have been exceptio-nally lucky that it keeps working very well and it has had the most enormous affect on my life really.

“I had the opportunity to write a thank you letter to the donor’s family but I cannot express the full extent of my gratitude.

“It must be such a horribly sad time for the family and to be brave and kind and generous to help other people is just fantastic.

“I never heard back from them and so I don’t know who it was who saved my life.”

Ms Rose, who lives in Oxford with husband John McArtney, said despite the fact a kidney problem can be treated by dialysis it is still a life-changing condition.

She said: “I do not think you realise how poorly you feel until you have had the transplant.

“The thing I remember is how much better I felt straight away.”

Bicester chef Kevin Beach managed to avoid going onto dialysis by a matter of weeks, after his partner Karen Gomme stepped in to donate her kidney.

The 44-year-old was diagnosed with kidney disease in July 2012 and managed to cope without dialysis until late last year, when his health deteriorated.

Ms Gomme and her 25-year-old solicitor daughter Laura volunteered to donate one of their kidneys and doctors gave the go-ahead for the operation in September last year.

He said: “To be given this new lease of life is fantastic. It really brings life into perspective.

“You cannot put a price on it.

“When Karen first decided to do it, it was something for me but it became something for us.

“A lot of the good times we had together would have stopped happening if I had to have dialysis.

“Why wait until it is too late to change someone’s life?”

The support Churchill Hospital’s renal and transplant teams offered Mr Beach won the medical staff an Oxford Mail Hospital Heroes award earlier this month.

REGISTERING COULD MEAN EVERYTHING

The Oxford Mail is asking you to give someone the most precious of gifts this Christmas.
Your help could save the life of one of any of the 51 people in the county waiting for a donor.

We are backing the Life Saver campaign to get more people to sign up to become organ donors, after it was revealed less than half the people of Oxfordshire are registered donors. The organ donor register is free to join online, on the phone, or by text.

Visit organdonation.nhs.uk, call 0300 123 23 23 or text save to 62323.

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