Bay woman donates kidney in gift of life

MANDY SMITH
What would you do if your best friend's partner was suffering from a debilitating kidney disease?
For Tamela Brownrigg, the answer was simple - donate her right kidney.
It's the ultimate gift of love for her friend Robert's Australian partner Roger Garraway who was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, a progressive, genetic disorder of the kidneys, at age 7.
Three years ago, Roger's kidneys packed in.
He relied on a dialysis Machine to do the lifesaving work his body could not, and joined his country's ever-increasing donor waiting list.
"It's a lottery, not a system," the 46-year-old said.
Luckily Tamela stepped in. The Te Hauke woman had seen Roger's health deteriorate during visits to the couple's home in Sydney. "I asked Rob what it was that would make him better, and he said the only thing was a kidney donation."
New Zealand has the lowest organ donor rate in the Western world - six organ donors per million people.
As of April, there were 612 people in New Zealand waiting for a transplant.
Most - some 559 people - are waiting for a kidney, which can come from a live donor. But just 68 single kidneys were donated last year.
Tamela, 40, said she never felt pressured to become a donor. And when she made the decision, she didn't do it lightly - first consulting her husband, mother, and a kuia.
"I needed to consider the impact on my culture, and whether people would be offended," the Ngati Kahungunu descendant, said.
"If my [kuia] had said 'I'm not sure dear, this is something our culture believes you shouldn't do', I wouldn't have gone ahead with it."
In May 2006, with her family's support, she called Roger to say she wanted to be his donor.
The next day, she and husband James got a call saying they had been chosen to adopt a second baby.
"Here we were going through the process of giving life and we had just received the most precious gift ever," she said, nodding towards her son Hunter, now 15 months old. "That was a pretty strong sign we were doing theright thing."
After a year of tests, including assessments by a psychologist as well as blood tests and scans to check the position and health of the donor's kidney, the pair were deemed medically compatible for the life-changing operation - "the most exciting moment in our lives".
The surgery was scheduled for February 19 in Sydney.
Despite some pre-op panic when Roger suffered a nose-bleed and elevated potassium levels requiring emergency treatment, the transplant was completed successfully within five hours of the organ's removal.
Within two months of the surgery, Roger started gaining weight, got the colour back in his face, and his energy levels improved.
"And," he said, "I got my sense of humour back."
He and Robert are now on the first leg of a world tour, which will take in France, the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.
Travel had been out of the question while he was on dialysis.
Tamela's recovery took about seven weeks. Four months on, all she has to show for her donation are three small scars on her back and stomach.
"It's been truly amazing to give this gift of life and then return to a completely normal existence," she said.
There is no guarantee how long the donated organ, which the pair affectionately call Vivian, will last. The average time is 17 years and, as Roger has no complicating diseases, he should get a good run out of it.
Tamela will have to have yearly checks on her remaining kidney, while Roger will have to take anti-rejection drugs twice a day for the rest of his life.
That could prove a challenge. "The truth is when you feel this good it's easy to forget you need medication to stay that way."
Tamela realises she has stepped outside of cultural norms by donating an organ.
Traditionally, she said, Maori believe that you are born from Mother Earth whole and so when you die you must return whole. Donating a part of one's sacred body is just not acceptable.
That goes some way to explaining why 10 Maori have donated their organs in the past five years, compared to 153 Pakeha.
"But our culture is evolving and has modernised in many ways," Tamela said.
Healthy people only need one kidney to survive. "It must be because you're meant to give the other away," Tamela said.