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"This is serious" - a blog from Geoff describing his kidney journey

Posted on: 11 March 2025

Geoff my kidney journeyHi, I’m Geoff and I should be dead.

Well, I say that, but here I am still alive and living life pretty much to the full. I had renal failure in 2016-17 which would have killed me if it wasn’t for the brilliant doctors and nurses at St. James Hospital in Leeds.

I was fit and healthy as I entered my 50s, in a good job with no real worries other than if Leeds Rhinos would win the title yet again. Then I developed a cough which wouldn’t go away.  I was sent for a chest x-ray and blood tests and heard back worryingly quickly, asking me to come to a low clearance clinic. This was the moment that changed my life.

So, I went and was told that although I was passing plenty, my kidneys weren’t doing their job and my kidney function was declining. They needed to keep seeing me.  From then on, every couple of months I went to clinic and my kidney function got worse and worse until in 2017 it was decided that I needed to go on the waiting list for a kidney transplant.

Well, "this is serious", I thought.

By this time, I was losing weight as my appetite had reduced and I was on the boring and bizarre renal diet. I ached, bruised easily, got regular muscle cramps in my legs and was constantly tired. Getting through a day without a couple of hours sleep meant work was becoming difficult and I had a less than understanding employer - I may very well have lost my job or lost some, or all, of my income.

Early in 2018 I went onto peritoneal dialysis (PD) which entailed an operation to insert a tube into my tummy.  I reacted badly to the anaesthetic and ended up back in hospital being unable to urinate. Having a full bladder and being unable to relieve it is THE most painful experience I have ever had. Not recommended.

Anyway, I trained to do PD and was doing this but finding it very limiting. I had to be able to be home doing PD four times a day and whilst it’s straight forward enough to carry out, having two litres of fluid in my tummy floating around is a very weird feeling.  It felt like having my insides turned to liquid and it sloshing around everywhere putting pressure on everything else in there.

A month later, in March 2018 I’d just finished doing a PD fluid exchange when I got a call which changed my life for the better. I had a kidney. My first reaction was panic and excitement - then a nervous feeling about what was to come.

My transplant worked and I still can’t believe how lucky I have been.  My mind regularly goes back to that day and especially to the brief chat with the transplant nurse who told me about my donor. I knew I’d find out a little about them in very basic terms.  A male in their 30s who had died.  I was surprised how incredibly emotional this moment was and I did cry.  How brave of my donor’s family to offer their loved one’s organs to save other people's lives.  It still amazes me, and I am so grateful to them and hope in some way their decision helps them cope with their loss a little.

Anyway, here I am, alive, well and doing ok getting on with my unexpected life. Ok I now need bigger trousers and wear braces to hold them up as the kidney, I call him Kevin, is in my lower tummy.  I’ll forgive him for that. I got married, retired early and am having a life I wouldn’t have had without the doctors, nurses and most importantly my donor.

Thank you to all of them, they saved my life.

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