New hope for Nicola

BREAKTHROUGH... Simon King has at last been given the green light to donate his kidney to his critically-ill wife.

A MUM of six who has waited more than a year for a life-saving new kidney is to receive one from her husband — thanks to an experimental transplant method.

On Valentine’s Day 2014 the Evening Chronicle reported how Simon King (35) had set up a Facebook group to hopefully find somebody willing to donate a kidney to his criticallly-ill wife Nicola (33), who has been battling kidney disease since the birth of the couple’s second child in 2004. A decade later she was told she needed a transplant.

Simon, who was told he wasn’t a suitable match, took to social media to find a donor for Nicola, who undergoes eight hours of dialysis each day.

Despite a record 54 prospective donors contacting Salford Royal Hospital none was a match and Nicola’s agonising wait continued. Doctors reckoned the many transfusions she had left her with a unique blood antibody composition that would be impossible to match.

But after doing some research online, the couple discovered an experimental transplant method.

“A professor in Coventry, Robert Higgins, uses an experimental method of transplanting mismatched kidneys,” explained Simon. The method removes antibodies from the blood so they don’t damage the new kidney.

Simon was originally found to be a blood match with his wife - and Professor Higgins’ method means he can be a donor after all.

The couple are now at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, and the transplant should take place in the next couple of days. The procedure has an 85 per cent success rate — “success” meaning a kidney endurance of three years or more.

Simon added: “This new method has been a real boost. If my kidney can take Nicola to another three years we are hopeful science and technology will have moved on and we will have other options.”