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A Little Light, A Little Hope

Competition: Competition 2
Author:John Finnegan

Submitted Date:22nd Nov 2000

September 16, 1998, the night before my chance of a new life, I sat in an isolated hospital room pondering over my forthcoming kidney transplant planned for the next day, when there was a knock on the door.

In came Terrence, my brother. Terrence had unselfishly offered me one of his kidneys as soon as he found out that both of mine had failed.

It had taken nearly three years for this day to arrive due to one problem or another and it was only two days prior to the planned operation that we were actually told that it could definitely go ahead.

Throughout the three years I had to be dialysed three times a week at the hospital.

"Let's celebrate" Terrence said as he produced a half bottle of wine from under his dressing gown together with two plastic cups he had managed to pinch from the hospital kitchen on his way down from his ward.

"Switch the television on the match has just started." It was European football night. Just as the first goal went in the television went dead.

We hid the wine as we asked for a replacement. The next television lasted barely 10 minutes but thankfully the third continued to work for the rest of the match. We later found out that the ward had launched an appeal for some new television sets!

As Terrence left to return to his ward he turned around and gave me a big hug, he was very emotional. I felt it too. Here was a healthy young man about to undergo major surgery to give his brother, me, a chance of a new life.

There were no cast iron guarantees of the transplant being a success or that he would not have problems himself afterwards, but he had no hesitation.

Sitting once again by myself I went over, in my head, how it had all started. I was nine years old at the time. A loud voice shouted. "Why are you standing there all by yourself, you should be getting ready for the next race?"

It was the school sports day but I was not feeling very well at all. I was suffering, I had a mouth full of ulcers and felt very ill. I had contracted glandular fever but fortunately my mother was there to take me home.

As a result of the fever, by the time I was 10, which was a few weeks later, I was rushed into hospital where they found I had become diabetic. I remember my first night in the hospital; I was in the very end bed of a long ward.

There was a noise at the bottom of the ward as a nurse appeared carrying a syringe. I thought, somebody is going to be unlucky, not realising as she passed bed after bed that she was heading towards me.

As she passed the bed next to mine, it dawned on me that I was the unlucky one. It was the first of many that night and for the rest of my life.

Life continued on, I was very active, playing football and doing everything any other young boy would do, including getting into trouble on the odd occasion.

I started work and I have continued to do so throughout everything. I started having problems in my 20S When I needed laser treatment on my eyes and I needed several operations on my hands.

Nothing threw me until I was informed that my kidneys were starting to deteriorate. I was told that at sometime in the future I would need dialysis. By this time I was married and this was devastating news for both Kerry my wife and myself. However we were fortunate, in that, a little light and a little hope came into our lives in the form of our daughter Lauren.

Nine and a half weeks before Lauren was due to be born Kerry and I were attending an antenatal class and we stopped behind afterwards to ask about premature births as Kerry had been warned that Lauren could arrive a couple of weeks early.

We left the hospital at nine o'clock that evening but by half past one in the morning we were back, Kerry was in labour!

Everything happened so quickly, I didn't know which way to turn. I must have burned a hole in the carpet at home as I turned one way then another. Lauren was born at 3.28, I was a dad, and everything was okay.

Lauren had to stay in the Special Care Baby Unit for some weeks and the whole time was an extremely emotional period. The initial concern, the thought that our little baby could be dead with Kerry going into labour so early, followed by the relief of seeing a heartbeat on the monitor and then the joy of becoming a father.

A year and nine months later, Christmas 1995, I was put on dialysis and accepted onto the kidney transplant waiting list.

I had a very positive attitude despite knowing that the wait for a new kidney via the transplant list could mean many years on dialysis, because I had my little light to lead me forward.

I was determined that Lauren would always remember her Daddy and that meant that I was determined to see her grow up. Now here I was, on the eve of a life changing operation that would help me achieve this goal.

The next morning, Thursday 17 September 1998, the operation took place, lasting about four hours. I woke up from under the anaesthetic hearing this voice continually shouting "John! John!" Eventually this voice ground me down. I said "what?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes" I replied and that was the last I heard of the voice as I drifted back to sleep.

It was Terrence, whose operation had obviously finished before mine, but he had insisted on being left in the recovery room until he was happy that I was alright.

The next thing I knew I was back in the isolated room surrounded by many people with tubes coming out of everywhere. At that point Kerry told me that the operation was a success and that the kidney was working. This was the most emotional moment I can recall. The feeling was tremendous.

The next days were vital, as my body would continually try to reject the new gift.

The day after my operation was awful, I couldn't move due to the pain, I wanted a bath and I had to be checked over by the nurses every half an hour, day and night, so I couldn't even have a decent night's sleep.

Saturday arrived and I started to feel better and I was encouraged to sit up out of bed. I thought I was doing rather well after only two days but Terrence surpassed me when he walked into my room on that day.

He wanted to see for himself how well I was doing and couldn't wait any longer. As he walked into my room a look of horror appeared on his face.

"What's that," he remarked? It was a can of diet coke I was enjoying.

"I don't like diet coke" he replied, still with the look of horror on his face. He thought that his kidney in my body would be affected by the diet coke because he didn't like it. After just a week we were both out of hospital and over two years later we are both well.

I have just been made redundant for the first time in my life, at the age of 43, but I just need to take my little light by the hand to know that I have hope for the future.