I’m donating a kidne y to a complete strang e r ...to save my wife’s life
8 patients in amazing 4-way swap ops at 4 hospitals
A LOVING husband is giving his wife the gift of life by donating his kidney to a stranger.
Stuart Keys’ organ will be removed in a ground-breaking programme involving four donors and four recipients.
His kidney goes to a stranger who donates his or her organ in a chain which then gives his wife Andrea her vital match.
Her operation will take place at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, one of four involved in the linked operations, which will take place on July 18.
Andrea, 41, has had Wilson’s Disease, a genetic disorder, since she was 14. It causes a build-up of copper in the body which resulted in kidney failure.
Stuart said: “She was told that without a liver transplant she would be dead within three weeks.”
The transplant was successful, but medication to stop her body rejecting the liver caused her kidneys to begin to fail again.
Andrea also developed arthritis and two knee replacements forced her to quit her job as a groom.
Stuart, 41, of Throckley, Newcastle upon Tyne, said: “It’s very difficult to get your head round – the medicine has kept her alive but it’s made her worse at the same time.”
Andrea spends hours a day hooked up to a dialysis machine at home as she waits for the lifesaving operation – a process which leaves her permanently tired. Stuart offered to donate one of his kidneys to his wife of 17 years. Tests revealed that he and Andrea were not a match, but they were offered the chance to be part of a pooled donation scheme.
Stuart added: “I know it’s going to be hard and we are both going to be incapacitated for a while if it goes ahead, but dialysis is such a drain on Andrea I’m looking forward to getting her better.”
It will be hard but I’m looking forward to getting her better STUART KEYS ON THE OP FOR HIS WIFE ANDREA