THE break-up of Linda Joel’s marriage has left her without the man she loved, and the donor needed to save her life.

The diabetic mother-of-five, from Abingdon, needs a transplant and her husband of four years, Gary, had promised her his kidney.

But the decorator, 46, left their Tower Close home three weeks ago.

Mrs Joel, 57, said: “I am unsure of the future now. He has put my life in dire straits. He has taken a lifeline away from me and now I have to find another one.

“He left knowing that I was relying on him. It would not have meant so much if he did not know how important it was for him to do this.”

The Oxford Mail reported in December 2009 how Mrs Joel’s children had come forward to donate an organ but Mr Joel said he would offer his.

Speaking at the time, he said: “I just said it’s my responsibility and I have to get on with it. All the kids are young with children.

“I was bowled over when they volunteered – they came up trumps. The doctors said Linda would be on a waiting list otherwise and we all knew there wouldn’t need to be a waiting list if we stepped up.”

Mrs Joel was due to have the operation last year but was too ill and is now waiting to have a gastric bypass so she can lose enough weight to have the transplant.

The grandmother-of-15 has only one working kidney and visits hospital up to twice a week.

Mr Joel was in the same blood group as his wife, which meant the chance his kidney would be compatible was 70 per cent.

She said: “He did all my medications and came to all my hospital appointments. Hardly anybody can believe what he has done. Everybody is so shocked.

“I am glad my kids are around me as I would never have come through this otherwise.”

The couple had been together for nine years after meeting in a pub in Maidenhead. They married on October 7, 2006, in St Michael and All Angels’ Church in Abingdon.

Mrs Joel’s daughter Hayley Smith, 34, of Tower Close, said: “Financially she will be fine but emotionally she is a complete wreck.

“Obviously she is devastated he has gone as he was her backbone, but her health was banking on him.

“Now we have to go through all the rigor of finding another match. And the chances are slim at the moment.”

Mrs Joel’s son Simon Smith, 38, added: “He can’t have loved her as he said he did.”

Mr Joel was asked by the Oxford Mail to comment, but did not respond.

Mrs Joel received a note from him last week.

He wrote: “Linda, you and I have not been okay for a long time. I have felt the walls closing on me.

“I wish you and your family all the luck in the world but I’m not coming back.”

Mrs Joel needs to have the gastric bypass and six months of dialysis before the donor process starts again. Then she is likely to have to go on a transplant waiting list.

In Oxfordshire, between 2006-08, 14 per cent of kidney transplant patients got a kidney within six months, 23 per cent within a year, and 39 per cent within two years.

The remainder wait more than two years.

bwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk