Living happily after second transplant
IN the third part of our special features to marking Organ Donor Awareness Week we meet Darren Cawley from Westport.
Darren, who is currently the president of Westport Lions Club, is the recipient of two kidney transplants. Here he reflects on his journey with kidney failure, and his outlook on life after his successful kidney transplant. This is his story:
A little over six years ago I received my second kidney transplant from a deceased organ donor.
It was an important and life changing time for me. Not just because I'd lost a kidney transplant in the past. Not because I had spent nine years going into Castlebar Hospital on dialysis.
It was because exactly one month earlier I had proposed to my now wife, Aoife.
Life with kidney failure is incredibly difficult at times, but it's still life, and it needs to be lived - a realisation that took me many years to learn.
I was 20 years old when an optician sent me to the hospital. He didn't say why and it came as an enormous shock that within a week of going into hospital I was diagnosed with renal failure, starting kidney dialysis a few days later.
I was not some sickly youth. I was studying for a sports degree in England. I had seen my future in health and fitness or teaching.
From a sports and fitness student to kidney failure in a week.
Life has a funny way of changing your direction.
As the years passed and I adapted to the gruelling regime of dialysis. I started giving talks in schools thanks to an initiative started by Westport Lions Club, which I had recently joined.
I went from school to school telling of my experiences and explaining about organ donor cards.
The teachers found it greatly helped the kids in terms of hearing stories of overcoming adversity and positive mental health.
These talks were like therapy for me.
I was opening up to students in ways I never had with family and friends and the result was I became happier and more at ease with myself. I had finally accepted myself and my illness.
Acceptance is such a key word in dealing with any illness.
Through the Irish Kidney Association I have spoken at the European Parliament, and I now find myself speaking part-time all over Ireland and Europe.
It has become a passion to promote the lifesaving gift of organ donation, and to share the positive experiences garnered from living with kidney failure.
These experiences, challenging at the time, showed me lessons you can learn through adversity such as resilience, adaptability and a different viewpoint on life.
While on dialysis I competed in the European Transplant and Dialysis Games. The positive aspects of these games would fill a 20,000 word thesis. Discovering other people with a similar illness being so fit and active removed all the excuses I had carried around for years.
Winning the 100-metre final at the Dublin games in 2010 was one of my greatest experiences and led to some friends jokingly referring to me as the ‘Fastest sick person in Europe’!
When you are young with kidney failure and on dialysis the thought of living a normal life, travelling, working or having children never seem possible.
Receiving the gift of life through my second transplant allowed me to do all of the things that I wouldn’t have dreamed possible when I was first diagnosed. I could get married with confidence. I went back to college doing a Masters in health promotion with confidence.
And with the birth of our first child, Iarlaith, I look to the future with confidence.
There are approximately 600 people in Ireland awaiting life-saving heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas transplants. The Irish Kidney Association’s Organ Donor Awareness Week 2017 is taking place from April 1-8. The key focus of the campaign is to ask the Irish public to have the important family discussion about their wishes concerning deceased organ donation.
The Irish Kidney Association is the national organisation charged with the promotion and distribution of the organ donor card in Ireland, on behalf of Organ Donation Transplant Ireland.
Organ Donor Cards can be obtained by phoning the Irish Kidney Association. LoCall 1890 543639 or Freetext the word DONOR to 50050. Visit website www.ika.ie.
It is now possible to store an organ donor card, the ‘ecard’, on Smart mobile phones. Simply search for ‘Donor ECard’ at the iPhone Store or Android Market Place.