Being able to give my daughter a kidney has changed our lives
Mum Samantha ‘ecstatic’ when she learned she was a match for little Ella
A MOTHER has said her family’s ‘lives changed for the better’ after she donated one of her kidneys to her young daughter.
Speaking at the launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week, Samantha O’Reilly said she was ecstatic when she learned she was a match for Ella, who was just four when she underwent the transplant.
The Irish Kidney Association (IKA) has said it hopes to see 50 or more living kidney donations carried out here this year, the 60th year of organ transplantation in Ireland.
Ms O’Reilly said that Ella, who is now aged nine, had been diagnosed with cancer in both her kidneys when she was just four months old. She went through chemotherapy and ended up having both her kidneys removed at different stages.
‘So by the time she was three, she started dialysis at home, and she was very heavily fluid restricted, and her diet was
‘I nearly shouted on the street’
restricted,’ Ms O’Reilly told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘We had to wait for two years post chemotherapy to start the process, which was the transplant waiting list.
‘About a week after she was put on to the list I found out that I was a match. I was ecstatic. I actually found out in Organ Donor Week, in 2019, and I was selling the forget-me-nots on the streets, and I nearly shouted to everyone on the street.’
Ms O’Reilly, a former leisure centre manager from Drogheda, Co. Louth, said more tests followed, to ensure she was eligible to be a donor.
The pair were ultimately given a transplant date of July 1, 2019 – exactly four years to the day from Ella’s diagnosis.
‘She was in Temple Street, I was in Beaumont, so they blue-lighted my kidney over to her,’ Ms O’Reilly recalled.
‘Things have been going strong since. She’s grown, got big, she’s into dancing, plays Gaelic with the girls, she does athletics, she’s in second class at school.’
It took Ms O’Reilly six months to be fully mobile herself, but they have not looked back, she said.
Life has changed completely for the family, including Ella’s two siblings, since the transplant.
Ms O’Reilly explained: ‘Covid kicked in quite quickly after we had the transplant, so we had to back into our bubble for a long time, but now we’ve come back out and are living life to the full, going on holidays and doing normal kid things… it’s freedom’.
Encouraging others to become donors, she said: ‘The difference they make to that person’s life you can’t put into words, you can’t underestimate how much of a change that will make to a whole family.
‘Not just the person who gets the organ or the kidney, but their family and their support circle – their whole lives change for the better, and it was amazing to be able to give to her, but when I go, take all my organs, take everything!’ She said that living donors were, to her, ‘superheroes’.
Ms O’Reilly also said she was delighted an opt-in system was being introduced, making it easier to give an organ donation.
That new system is part of the Human Tissue Bill, which was signed into law by the President, Michael D. Higgins, on February 28 this year,
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said the aim is to have a register up and running this year of those who do not want to be a donor, once the necessary regulations are in place.
Carol Moore, IKA chief executive, said: ‘In these cases, their families will not be approached in the event of their untimely death. All those who do not opt out will be considered potential organ donors, but their families will still have the final decision. The Act will also allow, for the first time, for altruistic living donation in Ireland, where the donor does not know the recipient.’
Dr Catherine Motherway, clinical lead of the HSE’s organ donation and transplants, said: ‘Organ donors are celebrated and cherished publicly every year during Organ Donation Awareness Week. We hear the stories of lives saved, the joy of new beginnings, being able to work, play sport, raise children, and often the relief and joy of breathing easily without machines. The gift is tinged with sadness knowing that another family has lost a life, but I know the donors are cherished in the hearts of each transplant recipient daily.
‘For our deceased donor families, we know that the decision to donate organs of their loved one can bring hope and some solace in the midst of grief and their pride and joy that they have in their loved one’s life and final act of immense kindness.’
At any one time in Ireland, there are approximately 600 people active on waiting lists for organ transplants including heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas.
A total of 282 transplant operations were carried out in Ireland last year – 32 more than in 2022.
This was thanks to the generosity of the families of 95 deceased and 30 living donors.
‘The gift is tinged with sadness’