Local Rebecca Paterson has been battling chronic kidney disease all her life, even at the age of 8, she received her first kidney from her father, John. Chronic kidney disease has significantly impacted her quality of life most of her life, and for the past two years, she has been on dialysis. It is now 36 years since that first kidney transplant and her brother, Shaun, has now given his kidney to save his sister.
Shaun Paterson explains, “My sister Rebecca Paterson was born with renal failure and then had a transplant from our father when she was a little girl and that lasted 35 years. It was able to give her a normal life. About two years ago that transplant organ started to fail and that had the impact of not being able to work full-time any more or not at all. She was having to go to dialysis in Wagga three times a week and all of the other associated health related problems that go along with it.
“When that happened we started looking at the process of other donors who might be able to come on board. Originally I was looked at as a suitable candidate because she was my full sister and we had matching blood types. What came out of it twelve months ago was they came to us and said that they weren’t prepared to let me be a direct transplant donor to her because there were a couple of things that they were worried about and it would not give the best re-sult and potential rejection.
“What they then did is said there is a scheme called the paired exchange, which is basically there are other people in the same situations and they find someone who is the best match for my kidney who might be in the same boat. I then give my kidney to them and their donor gives their kidney to my sister, so everybody gets what they need but it’s not directly from your family member or from the donor that you originally came on board with.
“We didn’t know that this even existed until this all happened.
“We had it in our head that we would be doing it as a direct transplant like my father had done for her and once you have that in your mind-set that that is what it is going to be, it’s quite hard to change that.
“It would have meant that other than that Rebecca would have gone on the deceased list and then obviously how long is a piece of string. It could have taken years and still may have never had a perfect result.
“The Paired Exchange can have as many as 12 people involved on the day and they can be spread right across Australia and New Zealand.
“My kidney could have gone to Auckland and Rebecca’s kidney could have come from Perth and it’s all done on the same day.
“We were told that there was ten people involved on the day that we did ours last Tuesday.
“Five people got lifesaving kidney transplants out of that process that happened last Tuesday. It’s amazing. It blows your mind a bit.
“Five weeks ago we got the call up to say other people had been paired with us and we needed to be at RPA on November 25 for the surgery to happen on 26th November.
“After two years it was like hurry up and get everything done and get to RPA in Sydney.
“Rebecca is still there in RPA and will potentially be there for up to three months and that is part of the reason why we started a Go-FundMe because the costs and things are still fairly prohibitive for everybody.
“My eldest sister started a Go Fund Me to try and help with some of those costs for both Rebecca and myself and that is ticking along in the background as well, which is great.
“Rebecca won’t stay at RPA for all of that time, they will move her out to accommodation that is linked to the hospital, but she will have to stay there for up to three months to be monitored every day. She will have to commute back and forth from the lodging to the hospital.
“It’s a long time to be away from your family and she has had to give up work to be able to do this. It’s a massive decision and a massive commitment, but with a long term solution of a better quality of life.
“Our family has been in Cootamundra for a very very long time, so most people would know Rebecca.
“For the last little while she has been casually working at the Newsagency and most recently at the Salvation Army.
“It is very difficult to get work around dialysis commitments and you never know where you are going to be on any given day and that has had a lot of implications as well.”
Currently, they have raised $5,915 of their $15k target, you can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-rebecca-kidney-transplant
-Jack Murray
