Gift of true friendship

Alex Milne (right) figured he didn't need two kidneys, but friend Bain Duigan needed one. Photo / Robert Trathen

They call the kidney Zac. It used to belong to Alex Milne but now filters the blood of his friend Bain Duigan.

The nickname comes from Anzac Ave, the Auckland street the friends were walking down when Duigan finally prompted his friend to offer himself as a potential donor.

The idea had hung silently between them for six months, since Milne, then 23, had wondered out loud why there wasn't a way for people to donate to strangers. He'd consider donating to someone.

It was February last year, days before Duigan's 40th birthday. He'd been diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome, an incurable kidney disease, almost two years earlier, but the illness had only recently become debilitating. A short uphill walk would exhaust him. He'd started needing afternoon naps. His thinking was clouded, causing a "floaty doziness".

His kidney function had plunged to around 10 per cent of normal. He couldn't put off dialysis much longer, and he faced a five-year wait for a suitable kidney from a dead donor. Two family members and a family friend had offered to be donors, but they were either not blood matches or unsuitable.

"I said to Alex, 'You know how you mentioned donating to someone?" recalls Duigan.

"Well, I'm someone."

So began Zac's journey from Milne to Duigan. En route were numerous tests and delays, including three postponements of the surgery; anxiety and frustration; a postponed OE for Alex; interrogations by professionals, friends and strangers; delicate negotiations between the friends and a deepening bond unlike anything either had experienced before.

On June 25, 16 months after that day on Anzac Ave, the transplant finally went ahead. Surgeons extracted Milne's left kidney, stored it in a sterile chilly bin, then opened up Duigan and attached the organ in Duigan's pelvic area, below his own defunct pair.

According to Kidney Health, an estimated 192,000 New Zealanders suffer chronic kidney disease. Just under 2000 New Zealanders are on dialysis; 570 on the waiting list for a kidney from a dead donor. Because of the specific conditions of death required - brain-death in intensive care - only about 1 per cent of deaths a year produce a candidate donor. Around 110 kidney transplants are performed in New Zealand every year, with about half using live donors.

Milne, now 25, asked for a photo of the kidney. "It's a bit gross but it's all right. It looks a bit like a chicken breast." Two weeks after the surgery, he says he feels ridiculously well. "It's almost a non-event."

Duigan says having an ingrown toenail removed was more painful than his surgery. "I woke up in intensive care, I didn't feel at all distressed. I felt really calm and happy."