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Ron's Story
My name is Ron and I would like to share a success story with you. If my story can inspire just one person, I know I have accomplished one of my many goals in life.
As a parent, my wife and I would have never imagined anything going wrong with any of our children. We have three wonderful sons - extremely close and share many talents. The greatest and most important one has to be music, which they have been involved in since they were very young. As they grew up, their desire to play in a band together was fulfilled. That was a big part of their lives and they enjoyed jamming together.
Unfortunately, this came to an abrupt end, when our eldest son Carl found out he had Polycystic Kidney Disease. When he broke this devastating news to us, as parents all we could think of is how would we be able to make this process easier to help our son cope with what was to follow in the months ahead. Our two boys Randall and Darren assured Carl that they would give him a kidney when his failed.
As parents, we were determined to give our son one of our kidneys and hoped that we would be compatible. Through our greatest surprise and joy, not one, but both of us were compatible. After ten months on dialysis, the day for our son to have a transplant approached more quickly than expected. The operation went extremely well. I had keyhole surgery to remove a kidney and was overwhelmed knowing that my kidney was going to give our son a new life. I was back at work full time after just three weeks and felt great. One year later, Carl and his beautiful wife left Perth to travel around Australia. They have been travelling for the past sixteen months exploring our country we are so blessed to be in.
I wanted to share my story to give people a clearer understanding of the importance of being listed on the living donor program to help someone as I have helped my son to have a second chance in life. I realise that one kidney is all we need to live a healthy, normal life. Two kidneys are a luxury. The greatest gift to give to anyone is "life" which in turn is rewarding for the donor.