Meeting Henry

I have to admit, organ donation is something that I know very little about. Even though I’m on the donor register, and have been for some years, I hadn’t really thought about where my bits might be going. Yes, I’ve promised any part of me that medical staff might want, but frankly, I’d hoped I wouldn’t know anything about it once they got my hands on me.
So, it was with much interest and not a little awe that I met with Henry Kimbell, a genuine, bona-fide kidney transplant recipient. This brilliant bloke popped into the office to chat about his experiences, and why he is passionate enough about the cause to organise an evening dedicated to telling others about it.
Henry explained to me that he has Dents disease, a rare illness that causes a build up of calcium in the kidneys that leads to deteriorated function. The disease is found in x chromosomes and so comes from a female carrier, Henry’s mother in this case, but shows in males.
‘I’d always had regular doctors visits to check my how my kidneys were functioning’, Henry explained, ‘but by the time I was 17, it had dropped from 40% to only 14% in the space of 18 months.’
‘I was doing my A levels at the time, so had to chose between having a transplant then or being on dialysis and having a transplant later. I chose to finish my year at school, although I had to have dialysis 3 or 4 times a day, and then had my transplant on the 17th of September 2004.’
‘My Dad was the donor, so on the day itself I was worried about him, but I think the whole experience has made him understand the condition better. The operation went ok, and I was put on immunosuppressant drugs so that my body could adjust to the new organ.’
‘It took me about a year to get back to normal, but I feel very lucky. I’d like to try and do what I can to help people who are less fortunate: I had my family around me and I had a living donor which made the situation that bit easier.’
‘There’s a misconception about organ donation that you have to give something whilst you’re still alive, and this simply isn’t the case. I hope that by listening to me talk people will have a better understanding about what organ donation involves.’
Henry has planned a free evening event dedicated to educating students about the intricacies of organ donation where both he and his Dad will talk about their experiences. There will also be two doctors from Guys Hospital London speaking: Lisa Burnatt, the living transplant coordinator, and Francis Calder, a surgeon, and the audience will have a chance to ask questions.
This evening will also include a raffle to raise money for the National Kidney Federation, and there will be a free bar. Seriously, this guy means business.
I have so much respect for a person who can talk about something like this with such breath-taking honesty. Henry explained to me that the kidney that he has now may last him for the next 10 years if he’s lucky, but he will have to have another transplant at some point. That kind of grim determination is truly inspiring, but Henry seems to take it all in his stride.
‘I met a lot of interesting people on the way,’ he told me ‘and in a way I’m glad I was exposed to it. You just do what you’ve got to do really.’