Organ Donor Awareness Week: 'You're never too late to save someone's life'

This July, mechanic and part-time farmer David Beirne will marry his fiancé Irene Nestor in her home parish of Tuam, before celebrating with family and friends at a reception in Breaffy House in Castlebar.

But the next morning – rather than relax and relive the memories of the day with his new wife – he will have no choice but to get into the car and drive to Galway for dialysis.

“Even though we are getting married on a Friday, I normally have to be in at 7 o’clock on a Saturday morning, so we’ll have to try and do something with that: another patient might swap and come in in the morning and I take their slot in the evening,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“When you have to go in, you have to go in.”

And this is reality for the 29-year-old as he awaits a kidney transplant, after his world was turned upside down in October 2013 by a shock diagnosis of kidney failure.

David, who grew up on a suckler and sheep farm in Knockcroghery, Co Roscommon, had decided to go to his GP after his ankle suddenly became swollen: an injury he thought he had sustained while refereeing a camogie match a few days earlier.

Blood tests revealed, however, that David’s creatinine levels were very high: signalling kidney failure. He was told that he would eventually need a transplant, but in the meantime, that he would have to start a form of home dialysis treatment every night for eight hours at a time.

“It took me a while to process it, to be honest with you,” recalls David, who explains how the diagnosis affected every aspect of his life.

Despite being an avid hurler with St Dominick’s GAA club, he had to give up playing sport once he started home dialysis in case of infection: a sacrifice that hit him hard.

“I couldn’t even go to a match for the first year, because I would have been outside the wire, wanting to be inside the wire,” he admits.

Similarly, he had to take a step back from the farm.

“When we were getting lambs and calves, it’s very hands-on, so I had to just keep away from it because of the risk of infection, because I had a line in for dialysis and if I got hit by a ewe or anything it could have ruptured it and I’d have ended up back in hospital again,” he explains.

Even things like going away for stag parties with his friends or weekends with Irene became too much effort, due to the amount of planning involved.

Living his life

Despite the difficulties of his diagnosis, however, David decided that his condition would not stop him living his life.

For example, even though he could no longer play hurling, he became a selector for his club instead, before stepping into the role of manager in 2016.

“You can be as positive or as negative about it as you want,” he says, “the more positive you are, the better off you’re going to be.”

He also credits the support of his parents John and Patricia, brothers Shane, Gavin and Kenneth and, of course, Irene, who he only started going out with a week prior to being diagnosed.

“Even the weekends that we couldn’t go away, she’d always try to do something to make sure I wasn’t missing out,” says David.

In January 2016, David started a new type of dialysis, haemodialysis, three times a week at the Wellstone Renal Clinic in Galway. While he has a lot more energy and is not at as much risk of infection, it does mean getting out of bed at 5.10am to make his 7am time slot, before returning home by 1.30pm to get back to work by 2pm – all of which takes its toll.

“Especially on Irene, because she’s the one who is living with it with me at the moment,” he says. “She sees firsthand when I come home in the evening, when I’m falling asleep on the couch, when I’m so tired after it, or when I’m feeling sick after dialysis sometimes.

“She’s the one that’s always there with me, so she’s the one who gets the brunt of it.”

Organ donors

Prior to being diagnosed, David always carried an organ donor card, and had signed the back of his first driving licence that he wanted to be a donor in the case of untimely death.

Needless to say, he never expected to find himself on the transplant waiting list for three years, but he believes that Ireland should introduce a system like France, where the consent for organ donation is presumed unless people opt out by joining an official refusal register.

In the meantime, however, he would encourage everybody to carry an organ donor card, because he believes “you’re never too late to save someone’s life”. Certainly, a kidney transplant would transform his.

“It would actually mean the world to me: that you could actually get back to living your normal life, doing what everyone else is doing on a normal day; that you can get back into your working full-time; get back into your routine; that you’re not going down to Galway; that you’re not restricted in what you can do,” he explains.

“Like something as simple as going on a holiday. Even that. Everyone gets to relax for a week or take a holiday, whereas we don’t. We have to be on dialysis every second day, so the most we get is a night here or a night there – and even with that, you’re restricted.”

Indeed, David and Irene are postponing their honeymoon until David’s transplant – due to the logistics involved in organising dialysis abroad and also the fear that he could “miss the call” if a suitable kidney became available.

Waiting for the call

Till then, however, David is determined to live life as fully as possible.

“You can’t put your life on hold completely. There’s no point sitting at home waiting for the phone call. You do not know when the phone call is going to come,” says David.

“All you can do is make the best of it and go out and try and live your life as best you can.”

Throughout Organ Donor Awareness Week, Irish Kidney Association (IKA)volunteers from its 25-branch network will be distributing organ donor cards and selling forget-me-not flowers and other merchandise in towns and villages around the country.

All proceeds will go towards the IKA’s aid for the 2,000-plus dialysis patients in Ireland and those patients fortunate enough to have received a kidney transplant.

The IKA’s charitable activities include the provision of accommodation for patients and their families on the grounds of Beaumont Hospital and holiday centres located in Tramore and Kerry.

It also provides patient advocacy, advice, financial aid and rehabilitation, health promotion through sport and the provision of kidney patient information and education.

Discussing your wishes with your family about organ donation is vitally important, as it is your next-of-kin who will have the final say on whether your organs will be donated should you have an untimely death.

Other ways the public can support organ donation are as follows: