It was 30 years ago

30 years ago, there was a young boy, who 30 years ago was a not very well boy, he did go to school, but only for 2 days a week, this young boy was nobody else but myself. I was doing hemodialysis 3 days a week for over 9 hours. It all started with a phone call, I picked up the phone, the person at the end asked if they could speak with my mother, I handed the phone to my mother, It was 6pm there abouts, I was to go to Paris, there was a kidney waiting for me. I got some clothes together, with the things a 10 year old thinks he will need. I gather it wasn't very useful.

So I set off to Paris, accompanied with my eldest brother and my mother driving from Luxembourg to Paris. We arrived in the early hours of the 28th of April 1977. This was the infancy of kidney transplantation on children. I had the operation at around 7am. I remember waking up afterwards in a seeing my mother and brother who were talking to me, but through a window, the nurse was covered head to foot, I could only see her eyes. I was in a totally sterile room, I was in there for around 3 days, before being moved to children's ward, but again in a fully sterile room, but this time I was allowed to have visits from family members, but they had to wear full sterile outfit. I think I was in there for a week or so, before I was moved to a semi-sterile room.

I had my first acute rejection 3 weeks after the transplant, I can remember having a temperature of 40^o or so. I recall I was put on a bed if ice cubes, somehow they didn't feel cold, but was most definitely cooling down. 3 weeks after that I was allowed home, I was well puffed up with the steroids, My mother didn't even recognised me, I looked very much like a munchkin from the wizard of OZ.