Fiancee donates kidney to save her partner

Bexhill Giants founder Eric Douglin will be given a life-saving transplant using a kidney donated by his fiancée Amanda Chillery.

The 46 year old, who has chronic kidney disease (CKD), is preparing for major surgery on Friday, January 15 at Guy's Hospital in London followed by an anxious wait to see if his body accepts the new organ.

After that he has another life-changing event to look forward to '“ on Christmas Day he proposed to Mandy, 38, and they hope to marry in 2011.

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Eric, who now lives in Bromley, will have plenty of support from Bexhill where he stayed for 18 years.

He has three sons and a daughter here but is also the founder and chairman of Bexhill Giants Basketball Club and comes down from Bromley every Wednesday to coach and on Fridays to watch games at home and around Sussex.

From modest beginnings he led the club to winning Sports Team of the Year in the Bexhill Achievers Awards 2007 and Eric himself was a Sports Personality award nominee.

Eric was diagnosed with CKD while he was working for Hastings Direct in 2002 as compliance manager.

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He suffered headaches on a regular basis but one day experienced "blinding" pain and double vision and was rushed by ambulance to hospital for emergency tests.

He received treatment at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton and has been on daily medication ever since to keep his kidneys going. The drug regime over time became less effective, and having been at 80 per cent efficiency, his kidneys are now working at just 13 per cent.

His consultant at Guy's Hospital told Eric in March 2009 that he would need a transplant within the year or face dialysis instead.

Eric said: "I went back and had a chat with Mandy and she just said '“ I will do it."

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The couple were then tested extensively to see if they would be a perfect match and having met all requirements the surgery is days away.

"I feel very guilty," Eric told the Observer this week.

"I speak to a lot of people in this situation and there is a feeling of guilt that someone else has to put themselves through a lot of pain, and have this battery of tests and health checks to be a donor.

"So there was that feeling of guilt that she wanted to put herself through that grief and pain for me.

"I also feel bad in the respect that I kept myself quite fit all my life, didn't smoke, didn't drink, so there is that feeling of '“ why me? It's a horrible feeling too."

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"But I am very grateful to Mandy for what she is doing. If she wasn't, I would be getting ready to go on dialysis and my life would not be the same - I would not be coming down to Bexhill, and seeing my children, and would not be able to work. You are sitting there waiting for someone to die. So that does put it all into perspective."

Mandy said: "I love the man. I want to be with him. If that means I give him a kidney, then let's go for it."

They been undergoing tests this week in readiness for admission on Thursday, followed by the removal on Friday of Mandy's left kidney which will then be assessed and checked before being transplanted into Eric.

He will remain in intensive care for three or four days and then stay at Guy's up to a week more. The operation will be followed by anti-immuno suppressant medication to ensure Eric's body does not reject the kidney, and he will need to return to hospital for supervision three times a week.

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One hundred similar operations are carried out at Guy's every year and there is a success rate of 95 per cent.

Eric is using his experience now to raise awareness of the need for organ donation, to encourage all of us to carry a donor card, and be ready to give blood. When he was a blood donor in Bexhill it was discovered his blood contained vital antibodies to combat Sickle Cell Anaemia, and was rushed off by taxi for immediate use.

He added: "If this story can affect just one person to go and put their name on the donor register, then it's successful '“ if just one person does that.

"I will still be running the Giants during my recovery and plan to stage a fundraising event in May for local charities and youth organisations, raising the awareness of health and fitness."

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