Alan thanks public for support after successful transplant for his mother
Alan Healy with his mother Helena - Alan donated one of his kidneys to Helena on January 28.
Back home just a week after he donated one of his kidneys to his mother, Glencar’s Alan Healy has thanked the public for their support and their support of the Irish Kidney Association’s Donor Transplant campaign after the operation on his mother Helena was deemed a great success.
Alan’s decision to donate one of his kidneys to his mother Helena attracted national attention as part of a campaign by the Irish Kidney Association to get more people to sign up for organ donor cards and the 26-year-old trainee accountant thanked the public for their support over the last week.
“We’re going to be busy for the next few days with people visiting,” Alan told the Observer, “We had amazing public support through Facebook, phone calls, texts and visits in the hospital.”
Alan, who was back home in Glencar just a week after his operation and awaiting the arrival of his mother later that day, said the operation was a great success - “In terms of kidney function, the operation was an outstanding success. The kidney started working straight away and my mother is doing very well.
“In terms of pain, there was a bit of back pain for my mother from the muscles but it will be irrelevant in the long term. The doctors are very happy, we were having bood tests twice a day but because the match was so close, my father was also a match as well, that is the reason the operation has gone so well.”
In fact, the operation went so well that Alan reported that his mother was actually doing better in tests in the hospital - “Her kidney was actually working better than mine, which is brilliant when you think about it. I suppose any time you have an operation, there is a worry but this has been the best case scenario so far.”
Alan himself is restricted from playing soccer for three months and is currently prohibited from lifting but he reported that he too had exceeded doctor’s expectations - “I started walking the day after the operation and I am able to bend down but that is the wonder of modern medicine.”
Now that the operation is over, Alan can slowly get back to normal as he joked “I suppose my 15 minutes of fame is coming to an end but it was great to have the chance to raise awareness. I thought it was great to see in the Observer that there were 400 applications for donor cards after the publicity before the operation.”
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Weather for Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland
Sunday 26 May 2013
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 8 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South west
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Temperature: 6 C to 13 C
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