‘No words can explain the difference it has made to my life’, says Goresbridge woman

A telephone call, at 10.10pm after the August Bank Holiday Weekend, delivered the good news.

The voice on the line told Mary Kelly to stay calm, to get in the car and come to Beaumont Hospital, where there was a kidney was waiting.

“We remember the night distinctly — it was just unreal,” says the Goresbridge mother of four, and grandmother. “It’s very hard to explain the feeling.”

That was in 2016. Mary had been on dialysis for a difficult 13 months.

When she was 33 years old, Mary received a diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease. This meant close monitoring for any change in kidney function.

In 2012, her kidney function became very low, resulting in her being placed on the transplant waiting list. In May 2015, Mary was told she would have to go on dialysis.

“I was very lucky to get home dialysis — they weren’t sure it would agree with me, but it did, so it worked well,” she says.
This involved being hooked up to the machine every night for eight to nine hours. Only then was she able to try and make the most of the next day, but her energy levels would eventually crash.

She recalls when her son, Garrett was getting married. Mary had to leave much early as she had to get home to the dialysis machine.

This scenario was turned on its head after her transplant, when her daughter Lorraine got married. Mary was able to stay throughout the celebrations and enjoy all the fantastic memories.

“It’s like someone asking you how you are after you’ve been sick — no words can explain the difference it has made to my life,” she says.

“Before, it was like you are just existing day to day.”

Now, she does water aerobics regularly, walking and cycling.

“It’s a whole new world, just to feel well. Words can’t describe it.”

Mary says her life has been completely transformed as a result of her transplant, and she will be forever grateful to the family of her deceased donor. Soon after her transplant she sent a mass card anonymously to the donor family via the transplant coordinator and to mark the anniversaries of her transplant, Mary has also sent cards to the family.

She says her belief is that when a person passes on, they are happy, and it is the family of whom she often thinks. “You do think of them every day.

For her, that is the importance of Organ Donor Awareness Week. She says people should have that conversation with their families, tell them their wished because a family member might not know.

“Whatever decision a person has made, it is the family that give the final say,” she says.