My Motivation
In January 2004 I was a kidney donor to my niece Sarah. I wanted to renew her quality of life. During my preparation for our operation I began to learn about the needs of renal and transplant patients and the shortage of organs for transplant. I met members of the North Staffs Kidney Patients Association and Staffordshire Transplant Association Family and Friends. I had visited the Salma Dialysis Centre in Khartoum the previous November and seen at first hand their urgent need for more dialysis machines and for other medical equipment.
My organ donation to Sarah went tragically wrong and my kidney was removed after the first few days. Two weeks later I had returned home. I felt completely at sea about where to go with this experience. I had left the real pain and suffering with Sarah and her family. For me the experience was a finite one and I was quickly well again. This was when I realized that I needed to turn this experience around by seeking to help other renal and transplant patients. It was an easy decision as had been my decision to be an organ donor.
My beloved husband Frank had died just over a year earlier and generating an ambition to fulfil the seven challenges was also a way of managing my loss. Christmas 2004 saw me setting about marshalling my resources, compiling a mailing list and obtaining help to produce a fund raising leaflet.