Dennis’ Story

Despite the delay, the team at Oxford were very understanding. They contacted me in the summer of 2020 when living donations were resumed. I explained my circumstances to my living donor coordinator, and she just suggested that I contact them again when the time was right for me. Not for the first time, she said that I could drop out at any time, even up to the date of the operation.   

Like many donors I know, my immediate family were at first quite apprehensive about my decision to donate a kidney to a stranger but have since been very supportive of what I am doing, and proud of what I have done. 

The operation itself went very well. The pain levels I felt afterwards were easily managed – my fractured pelvis from the year before acted as a bit of a dummy run. I was fully recovered within seven weeks and since then I’ve been able to live life just as I did before.

I couldn’t repeat the donation process this side of the river Styx, so I set about utilising my past experience in fundraising events and coupled that with raising awareness of living kidney donation. I came up with the idea of The Transplant Tour, a six-day cycle ride from Edinburgh to Oxford, stopping off at a total of seven transplant units during the journey. My aim was to show that being left with just one kidney doesn’t impede your life in any way. You can still live your life as normal, and even take part in things like long-distance endurance bike rides. 

The ride was supported by a fantastic team of volunteers, including a fellow living kidney donor called Paul van den Bosch who cycled with me.