Kidney donation to help cousin (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Kidney donation to help cousin

10:15am Monday 20th July 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

A BUSINESSWOMAN from a tiny village outside Harpenden has donated her kidney to her cousin to improve his life and help him live without hospital treatment.

Both Sally Wells, 48, of Blackmore End near Wheathampstead, and her cousin Johnny Robb are recovering well in Southmead Hospital in his home city of Bristol after the organ was transferred in a two-hour operation on Wednesday.

Her mother Margaret Wells, who lives in Clarence Road, Harpenden, told the Review: “I am so proud of her.

“Johnny has been having dialysis three times a week for many years. There are certain foods he was not able to eat and we've hardly seen him as he couldn't travel much.

“His wife had multiple sclerosis so life has been terribly difficult for them.

“He was on the donor register for years without getting anywhere and then Sally decided she was going to help.

“I was worried at first but she'd made up her mind she was going to do it if she was suitable. She had to do loads of tests first but they turned out okay so the operation has gone ahead.

“It is amazing - on Friday he was already looking better than he has for years. He was eating almonds – it sounds like a very little thing but that is one of the foods he had been unable to eat for years.

“Thanks to Sally he should be able to lead a pretty normal life now and we hope he will be able to visit us quite often.”

Ms Wells, a director of a recruitment consultancy, hopes to return home from hospital this week.

People with a diseased kidney need regular dialysis treatment to stop poisons entering their blood, but have only a 50 per cent chance of a donation within two years of going on the national register.