AT LONG LAST

Brave Hannah gets new kidney after five years’ wait

ALONG-AWAITED kidney transplant has given a brave little Old Colwyn girl hope of a normal life.

Seven-year-old Hannah Phillips’s family have waited for five years for a phone call promising an organ had become available and after an appeal in the press, the happy news has finally come.

That phone call came the week before last, leading to a dash to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital for the life-saving surgery and now parents Paul and Rachael Stokes Phillips, of Old Colwyn, have fresh hope.

Hannah was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome aged two. It caused a kidney disease called Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) meaning some sections of her kidney filters are scarred.

Her condition which means the clusters of tiny blood vessels in the kidneys that filter waste from the blood have become scarred which led to kidney failure.

Both her kidneys had to be removed.

It meant she had to rely on Haemodialysis at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool up to four times a week, depending on her blood levels and blood pressure.

Hannah was placed on the transplant register but the family endured five agonisingly long years of waiting.

In December, Rachael said: “A ll she wants for Christmas is a kidney.” But then she got that magical news they’d been waiting for to say a donor had become available.

Rachael said: “Last Wednesday, January 21 a call came in at 3am. We got an ambulance at 4am to Manchester and Hannah had transplant from a deceased donor.”

She added: “We went to the operating theatre at noon and came back out at 9pm. She’s had one new kidney.”

The news has naturally left her family ecstatic and relieved.

Rachael added:” I’m very happy and grateful.”

However, it didn’t all run smoothly. “Unfortunately, Hannah’s FSGS has already come back in her new kidney so she is having plasma exchange for few weeks. She’s weeing and has been able to have chocolate. She’s in pain, but she’s okay however we won’t know how things will be until pain goes away.“

Hannah was a pupil at Penmaen-rhos Infant School but has been home schooled. Her family gave her a smashing Christmas, with Santa Claus bringing her an mp3 player, Pokemon toys and Frozen dolls.

She also had a lovely surprise when actor Ray Quinn from the Liverpool Empire panto called in to meet Hannah and other patients, while she was on dialysis on her ward.