A MOTHER’S ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
Only Amanda’s kidney could save her daughter. She didn’t hesitate a second...
AFTER more than a decade searching desperately for ways to rescue her daughter’s health, it was perhaps the lowest point. Amanda Moaksom, a successful 48-year-old business woman, found herself sitting in a cage with her frightened daughter Ana, both wearing nothing but bikinis, while an American ‘healer’ zapped electrical currents into their bodies.
But today both of them can smile. Because although the sinister efforts of the American therapist failed comprehensively, something else has worked: and it is a huge, perhaps even more terrifying sacrifice made by Amanda herself that has done the trick.
Just a few month ago, as her daughter’s kidney condition worsened and her GCSE exams approached, Mrs Moaksom donated one of her own kidneys to Ana, 16.
Amanda had never had major surgery before. Yet, as she says: ‘There was no hesitation or doubt in my mind. As a mother, you would do anything for your children, especially to spare them pain. Giving one of my kidneys did not seem much of a sacrifice. I would lay down my life if necessary.’
Ana had been diagnosed with kidney damage at four, the result of scarring from recurring childhood urinary infections. And from then on, doctors warned she would need a transplant by the age of 13.
Yet the Moaksoms, from the Vale of Glamorgan, were determined to stave off the seemingly inevitable. Amanda had seen her own father struggle to cope with regular dialysis and vowed her child would not go through the same ordeal.
‘I did not want that for Ana,’ she says. ‘I did not want her to have to deal with the horrible side effects of dialysis, which people usually have to do about three times a week. I also knew that the longer she kept her own kidneys, the better her chances would be.’
So, she became obsessed with finding solutions. ‘As parents, you feel some degree of responsibility. It was my job to keep her safe. She was just a little child after all.’
The family’s diet was changed to organic and healthy. Sugar was banned, as was salt and red meat. Amanda also made it her mission, she says, to find alternative healers, including the quirky practitioner in New York.
‘It was done by a very old man, who promised he could cure her with some sort of cell regeneration therapy,’ says Amanda. ‘We did it for a week and paid him £25,000, but clearly it didn’t work.’
Other healers were consulted in London and India, but the US disappointment made Amanda and husband Neil too cynical to try further ‘miracle cures’. Still, no amount of money was too much for the couple, who run a health and beauty medi-spa in Cowbridge, South Wales, to spend on their daughters Ana and big sister Eli, 17, who have always had the best of everything – including private education.
Amanda, who started the business by herself, admits that for a long while she felt responsible for Ana’s condition.
‘I had two young babies who were a year apart and left them with a nanny to continue running my business, after just a couple of weeks each time. Ana kept getting high temperatures and colds, but the doctors didn’t seem very concerned. When we finally took her to A&E and found that she had suffered irreversible damage to her kidneys, I wished I had taken her in sooner. But the GP had assured me there was nothing to worry about.’
Despite occasional bouts of fatigue, Ana’s health remained manageable and she passed the 2013 deadline for her transplant.
Then, last Christmas, Ana’s health began to deteriorated at an alarming rate and the consultant warned it was time to push ahead with a kidney transplant.
There was never any serious thought of waiting for a potential donor from the national register.
Amanda says: ‘All the evidence shows that a living family donor offers the best results longer term. So when Ana’s blood creatinine levels began rising to a stupid level [indicating kidney serious malfunction] last Christmas, we started to plan for the operation, knowing if we delayed too long she could face gruelling dialysis.’
Both Amanda and Neil were tested to see if they could become organ donors, and it became clear Amanda was Ana’s best chance for success.
‘It’s a big decision that we discussed as a family, but there was never any doubt I would be the one,’ Amanda continues.
The family wanted the timing to give Ana a chance to recovery before facing her GCSEs. But doctors said it was too risky.
The next best option was to fit it around Ana’s studies so that she would have the best chance of doing well in her exams.
And so, on Mothers Day this year, she went under the knife and, once again, gave Ana the gift of life.
But it was not without considerable risks. They both suffered potentially life threatening post-operative complications and became very ill soon afterwards.
Amanda’s weight plummeted dramatically and she lost over a stone in weight within two weeks, while Ana’s body initially showed signs of rejecting the kidney.
Neil recalls feeling helpless at what was a tense and frightening time. ‘Major surgery is always a risk, but I it was a much bigger operation for the person giving. Amanda should have been in theatre for three and a half hours, but it was an hour longer because she suffered internal bleeding.
‘Then after she came home she couldn’t eat because she was so poorly. At the same time, it looked as if Ana’s body was rejecting the new kidney. It was a real worry but it turned out the dosage of antirejection drugs was the problem.’
TODAY, it all seems like a distant memory. We are sitting on the patio of the family’s immaculate sevenbedroom home overlooking farmland with grazing sheep and cows. The pair, flanked by dad Neil and Eli, have made a full recovery.
It is only now sinking in that their days of scouring the globe for alternative treatments, however crackpot, are over.
Looking glamorous but still too thin after the drastic weight loss caused by an infection, Amanda is coming to the end of her long haul back to full health.
‘It feels as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders,’ she says with obvious relief. ‘We always knew a transplant was the inevitable outcome. Without it, Ana would have ended up needing dialysis and I never wanted that for her.
‘As a mum, you will do anything for your children. You don’t like to see your kids suffer, so you’d rather take their pain than for them to go through it.
‘Being wheeled down to the theatre when there is technically nothing wrong with you was the strangest situation to be in, but I would do it all over again for the joy of seeing her bounding up the stairs with so much energy.’
Today, Ana is a picture of glowing health and beyond grateful for her mother’s sacrifice. ‘I can’t thank her enough,’ she says. ‘She is amazing. When she was so poorly, I felt it was all my fault. And it still seems odd to think I now have three kidneys and she only has one. She has given me the chance to lead a normal life. My energy levels have risen and I am looking forward to enjoying my summer off with the family.’
The teenager is eagerly awaiting the results of her exams and has been accepted on to a two-year business studies course, which will start in the autumn.
Neil adds: ‘I am so immensely proud of all the girls in my life. Amanda and Ana have been so brave, while Eli had been incredibly supportive. There is such a feeling of helplessness but hopefully we have come through it together as a family.’
The family is now fundraising for Kidney Wales to thank them for their ‘amazing’ work and research. They are aiming to raise £50,000 through a charity ball next month.