A Kidney in time for Christmas

13 December 2008Christmas has come early for Brian Fearn and his family with his nine-year wait for a kidney transplant coming to an end.

The Upper Hutt man is one of seven patients who have just received new kidneys at Wellington Hospital within six days - the busiest week recorded at the renal transplant unit, which usually does 16 to 25 operations a year.

Mr Fearn said he heard the phone about 12.30am and braced himself for bad news. "Instead it was (renal physician) Nicola Hay saying, "We've got a kidney for you". "She had to repeat it several times because I didn't believe it."

Since an earlier transplant failed nine years ago, Mr. Fearn has been hooked up to a dialysis machine for eight hours at a time, three times a week, to remove toxins from his blood.

He had long accepted another transplant was unlikely.

Mr Fearn was just 17, an apprentice plasterer, when an infection destroyed his kidneys.

By 21, newly married to Wendy, he needed peritoneal dialysis four times a day, in which a solution of salt water is put into the abdominal cavity through a tube.

He managed to keep working, taking saline bags to building sites in a chillybin and microwaving them in the smoko shed.

After three years on dialysis, he got his first transplant in 1986.

"It was amazing - I immediately had so much energy."

He was able to father children, which people on dialysis cannot do. Daniel, born a year after the transplant is now 21, Rachel 19 and Jessica 15. Thirteen years ago, that kidney failed.

For nine years, family life has revolved around Mr. Fearn's haemodialysis treatment, which uses an artifical kidney machine.

There was a family holiday in Australia after they booked dialysis across the Tasman a year in advance.

Mr Fearn had to monitor his diet carefully, which meant high-mineral foods, including avocados, bananas, mushrooms and canned goods, were off the menu, and he could drink only one litre a day.

He kept working, as a part-time salesman at Bunnings.

Now home after five days in hospital, he is looking forward to a "very merry Christmas".

"Doctors give transplanted kidneys an average life expectancy of five years. But some have lasted 30 years and I'm hoping this one will do me for life."

Renal Services clinical leader, Grant Pidgeon said doing a third of a year's work in less than a week had involved "heroic efforts" by all staff. Surgical teams worked till 3am one day to complete four transplants in 24 hours.

The main limit on the number of transplants was availability of donor organs. "These days most of our transplants are from living donors but sadly many of our patients on the waiting list have no suitable live donor."

Of course, in every case involving a deceased donor, there was a grieving family.

"We hope they can take a small measure of comfort in the fact the organs they have agreed to donate can make a profound difference for those who receive them."

About 120 people in the Wellington region are on dialysis. The average wait for a transplant is four years.

By Ruth Hill - The Dominion Post Weekend