Dundalk Donor Awareness Week Launched

A Dundalk man shares his uplifting story for 2019 Organ Donation Awareness Week, which will take place at the end of the month.

It took 19-year-old Sean Mulligan (61), who lives on the road from Dublin to Dundalk, to get the appeal of his kidney transplant, which changed his life.

For 19 years, the father of three and his grandfather were hospitalized three times a week for his hemodialysis treatment before being called for his second kidney transplant in the summer of 2018. Sean's chances of performing a proper kidney transplant with a donor were reduced strong antibody accumulation after the first transplant received in 1994 failed 5 years later (in 1999).

When he returned to dialysis, he went to Dublin for a year and two months before changing dialysis center at Daisy Hill, Newry, where he spent 18 years.

Sean explained how difficult his transplant career was.

"After waiting for a transplant for 19 years, I had almost given up on being called. I had tried to stay active and did everything that the doctors had told me to do, including following a restricted diet and consuming less fluid. & # 39;

He added, "After 19 years, living this way was a way of life for me. It was very unexpected last summer when I received a call from the transplant coordinator at Beaumont Hospital in the middle of the night for him to go immediately to Dublin when a donor had become available. & # 39;

He was immediately transferred for surgery and revealed that the operation "went very well and that my recovery was very fast".

"After eight days, I came out of the hospital and I went home to spend my new life with my wife Bernadette.

The transplant, he added, gave him a completely new perspective on his condition. "I did not know how much I was sick before having my donor's kidney. I have a lot more energy now and I am no longer on dialysis.

"I had such a small appetite and a sandwich was all I could eat a few days, but now it all changed and I eat all around me!

He added, "Although it is still early since my transplant, I am taking things from day to day and now I can not wait to become a grandfather of two other grandchildren again."

He called everyone to seriously consider becoming an organ donor, which could save the lives of other people.

"It is thanks to my two deceased donors and their families that I can now look to the future. I will always be grateful to my donors. I had never thought that a second donor would show up after such a long dialysis. My life has been transformed and I will always be grateful to him. & # 39;

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