LECTURER Howard Taylor got the best present of his life when his wife gave him one of her kidneys.

Mr Taylor, 51, received the kidney in a transplant operation with his wife Liz, 44, at the Churchill Hospital on December 1 last year.

Now, one year on, the father-of-three is able to live a normal life, and has returned to work as a psychology lecturer.

"I used to need dialysis three times a week for four hours in the evenings, but now I am back at work and I can lead a normal life," said Mr Taylor, who lives in Risinghurst with Liz and children Adam, 15, Holly, 11, and Owen, four.

He added: "Liz was worried that the operation would not work and that the kidney would be rejected but fortunately it did work.

"It was definitely the best present I have ever had, and all I have to do now is take some pills every day.

"We talked things through a lot before going ahead and in the end it was pretty obvious that this was the best thing to do. I'm sure this has brought us closer together."

Mr Taylor first discovered he had kidney problems after high blood pressure was diagnosed six years ago.

Then, two years ago, chronic renal failure was diagnosed and he started to need regular dialysis sessions.

Mrs Taylor, a midwife at the John Radcliffe Hospital, said she offered to donate a kidney to her husband when he first became ill but did not realise he would one day be forced to accept.

"When Howard first became ill, I thought that he might need a transplant in about ten years' time but did not think that he would need one so soon," she said.

"I was half-joking when I said 'you can have one of mine if there is no anonymous donation', but then he went downhill very rapidly last year and it put me on the spot.

"Our blood types matched - he is A positive and I am A negative - and the tissue types for the kidneys was a sufficient match for a live donor. We did a lot of soul-searching but in the end we decided to go ahead with it.

"It's a romantic way of putting it but I suppose in the long-term I have saved Howard's life.

"In the back of my mind I always knew I was going to go through with it, and it has improved our family life hugely, so in a way it was a selfish act.

"One of my worries was that I would not be able to donate a kidney to one of my children if they became ill in future but that was just in theory and Howard's needs were very real."

Mrs Taylor said her kidney was removed in the morning, with another operation in the afternoon to transplant the organ into her husband, both operations performed by Prof Peter Friend, director of the Oxford Transplant Centre, at the Churchill Hospital.

Both the Taylors have now gone back to work. Mrs Taylor added combining work and family life meant they did not have much time to worry about health problems.

On Saturday, the Taylors celebrated the anniversary of the operation by staging a musical fundraising night at the Risinghurst Community Centre in aid of the transplant centre, featuring acts including the Wheatley Park Soul Band. The night raised about £640.

Ruth Davies, a spokesman for the Oxford Transplant Campaign, which is raising £5m for a new transplant centre at the Churchill, described Mrs Taylor's decision to go ahead with the operation as "an extraordinary act of generosity". She said: "In these circumstances, people are given a totally new lease of life through the generosity of another."

  • The campaign still needs to raise £3.5m. For more information, visit www.oxfordtransplant.org.uk