Dad on school run gave me a kidney
Transplant patient hails stranger for his kind and selfless offer as operation saves his life
Harriet Whitehead Dad Mark Wilson is celebrating a new lease of life after a stranger he met at the nursery gates offered him a healthy kidney.
The 35-year-old was busy planning a family holiday to Orlando with his wife Victoria, 32, and children Emilie, five, and Lucas, one, when his world fell apart.
A routine medical check found his blood pressure was sky- high and he was devastated when a further test revealed he had stage five kidney disease.
Mark , f rom Gourock , Renfrewshire, was told he’d need a transplant but, with his family unable to donate because they weren’t a match, he feared time was running out.
However, his life was saved when Andy McCall, 32, a dad who shared the same daily nursery drop-off, stepped in to help after learning of his plight.
Mark, who had the operation on Valentine’s Day when both men lay side by side on hospital beds, said: “When Andy offered, I couldn’t believe it. At that point, he was pretty much a complete stranger.
“When my family and I heard that he was a match, we burst into tears – even the kidney co-ordinator was crying.
“It felt like our paths had been meant to cross. He knows I’ll never be able to repay him. He has saved my life.”
Gym- goer Mark seemed perfectly healthy. In October 2018, he noticed he was feeling tired but put it down to having a newborn, Lucas.
A health exam given by his employers Audi, where he works as a workshop controller at the firm’s Glasgow bodyshop, triggered the desperate search for a new organ.
The results showed that his kidneys were not f i ltering anywhere near enough waste. But Mark still looked so healthy that doctors initially thought there was an error with the testing kit.
He was admitted to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and three days later the results of a biopsy showed he had only 12 per cent kidney function.
Mark said: “Victoria and I were convinced there was some kind of mistake – but blood test after blood test came back with the same result.”
By August 2019, his kidney function had declined to just seven per cent and he went on dialysis.
Mark said: “Dialysis meant I couldn’t work any more and I actually started to feel ill for the first time. I’d no energy and could no longer play with the children for long or go to the gym.”
One day in July 2019, Mark got chatting to college apprentice co- ordinator Andy – who has two children, Lily, f ive, and Lewis, two, with his wife Laura – at the school gates as they collected their daughters from nursery.
He opened up about his plight and Andy thought about what it would be like if his life was turned upside down.
Four months later, he was confirmed as a match and the transplant went ahead last month. Andy said: “I felt proud that I’d been g iven the opportunity to help change his life and his family’s life. It was an emotional moment.
“I told him he was looking really good and we gave each other a high-five.” Within 24 hours of the transplant , M a rk ’s kidney function went from six to 78.9 per cent.
After taking a couple of months off work to recover, keen runner Andy is now back to ful l health and Mark is feeling “better than ever”.
Now, having forged a lifelong f r iendship, the men are “constantly” catching up via WhatsApp.
Mark said: “We’re having to isolate for now because of Covid-19 but we’ve been keeping each other entertained over WhatsApp.”
Andy said: “To me, helping Mark was a no-brainer. I had the chance to shape someone else’s life. There’s no better feeling.”
I’ll never be able to repay him. He saved my life