WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR EX A KIDNEY?
Most people are barely on speaking terms with former partners, let alone willing to donate them an organ. DAWN COLLINSON meets a woman who was able to look beyond the divorce papers
FIVE years after their divorce, Dan Pyatt and his ex-wife Kelly Hope had the most important disagreement of their lives.As he lay in his bed at Guy’s Hospital, with his kidneys failing and no donor after 12 months on the waiting list, she told him: “I’m going to get tested for a transplant.”
“He said to me, ‘I can’t ask you to do that’,” remembers Kelly. “But I told him, ‘It’s not up to you, it’s my decision. I know what the risks are and I’m doing it’.
“Even though we weren’t together any more, I wasn’t prepared to let my children be without a father. Besides, Dan is only 44. He’s got so much more life to lead.”
Dan and Kelly have known each other since they started atWalworth secondary school in London and began dating when they were 18.
They married on November 3, 2007, 13 years to the day after their first date, but less than a year later they were given the devastating news that Dan had an aggressive type of kidney disease.
Expecting their second daughter, the pair were warned that in around a decade he would need a kidney transplant.
“There was no history of kidney problems in Dan’s family, he was just unlucky,” says Kelly, 43. “He used to feel constantly tired, he had flu-like symptoms and always had headaches, but he’s a London taxi driver so at first we put it down to overworking.
“It wasn’t until we went away for a weekend to Bournemouth in March 2008, when I was pregnant, that I really started to worry. He was so unwell that he couldn’t get out of the hotel room. He’d taken tablets but they made no difference. He wasn’t getting any better.”
They went to A&E at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup where, noticing Dan had a severely bloodshot eye, he was sent to the eye clinic.A urine sample showed a very high level of blood and he was admitted for more tests.
“They couldn’t work out what was wrong.They were talking about leukaemia and we were absolutely terrified.
“Then a consultant said he thought it might be kidney-related, so he contacted Guy’s Hospital in London which specialises in renal conditions. Dan was transferred for a biopsy and diagnosed with IgA nephropathy in both his kidneys, a build-up of protein which causes inflammation and damages kidney tissue.”
The couple were told there was no cure, but Dan was given medication to protect his kidneys and they made changes to his diet and lifestyle. He returned regularly to Guy’s to have his kidneys and blood pressure monitored until, in September 2017, he was told his kidney function had fallen to just eight per cent and he was
put on dialysis and on a deceased donor waiting list. Sadly, by now their marriage had broken down despite their best efforts to save it. “There was no one else involved. We just weren’t getting on any more, even though we tried and tried,” says Kelly. “We had different priorities, life pressures, work patterns – I was working as a PA at the time and Dan was a taxi driver so we were like ships in the night. I think everything became too pressurised. “We didn’t just walk away, because we’d been together all our adult lives, but in the end we realised we couldn’t just keep going around in circles and it was making the atmosphere at home horrible.
“It wasn’t healthy for the children, so we both decided it would be best if we separated.” Kelly stayed in the family home in Bromley, Kent, with their daughters Billie and Jeanie, while Dan moved into a flat nearby.
It wasn’t always plain sailing, Kelly admits, but they were determined not to lose the friendship they’d had since childhood.
“There were lots of times when it was very difficult and it would have been easy to say, ‘We want you out of our lives’ and just let him see the children on weekends, but we’ve been such good friends for such a long time, as well as sharing a marriage.
“We had to discuss our difficulties and find a way to make it work.”
After their divorce, Kelly still went with Dan to his hospital appointments and to dialysis sessions.
“He was on it three days a week, six hours a day, and it really affected his relationship with the girls because there was no quality time any more.
“It was so upsetting for them to see him becoming really unwell.
“The consultants started to talk to Dan about a transplant, but he wasn’t one for
telling his family or friends how critical things were.After a year on the deceased donor list we hadn’t had a single phone call. He was deteriorating badly and it became clear to me what I had to do. “He never asked me, I told him.” Initial tests showed Kelly was a good tissue match, and her kidneys and other organs were functioning well, but their blood didn’t match.
“We had the option of going into a donor pool, where I’d donate to someone and then someone would donate to Dan in return, but that only happens two or three times a year so it would have prolonged things with no guarantee of a perfect match.
“We were running out of time so, after considering all the risks and discussing things, we decided to go ahead with a blood incompatible transplant.
“We were really open with our girls about it and gave them as much information as we could because we didn’t want them to be scared.
“On the morning of the transplant, in August 2018, they were with us in Guy’s.
“It was so emotional.We sat with Dan for a while. He said to me, ‘Good luck Kel, thank you so much’.
“Then I said goodbye to the girls and they waved me off to theatre.
“I could see the looks on their faces when I was going, how worried they were.
“But they were trying to smile and I didn’t want to show I was feeling scared myself. I had to be strong for them.”
The operation was a success and Dan was discharged before his ex-wife, just five days later. “He bounced out of there, you could see the difference in him immediately,” remembers Kelly.
With Dan taking anti-rejection and immune system tablets, and able to return to work, they spent a happy, healthy Christmas as a family with their girls, now aged 16 and 11, and enjoyed a holiday in France.
“Everyone says to us, ‘Surely you’ll get back together now?’ but it’s brought us closer in a different way,” she insists.
“In Guy’s they said they’d never had an ex donate before, but everyone’s relationship is different.
“When we split up we were able to save the best parts of our relationship, our friendship, and rebuild what we have from that.
“To me, I was giving a kidney to the father of my children and the best friend I’ve had since I was 11.We might not be married any more, but we’re still very much a family and I had to make that sacrifice to keep our family together.”
As for Dan, there’s no denying that his ex-wife’s extraordinary gesture saved his life. “Kelly’s amazing gesture to give me one of her kidneys is truly a selfless act.
“To put your own life on the line to help someone else is quite simply amazing.
“Kelly will always be my hero.”
‘We might not be married, but we’re still very much a family’