Brotherly love

CLOSE family . . . Nathan, left, Naomi and Matthew in a picture taken just before the transplant operation

MATTHEW Gardner has shown the ultimate in brotherly love . . . braving the surgeon’s knife to donate a kidney to his seriously-ill sibling Nathan, who had suffered chronic renal failure.

Both are now recovering well after the successful brother-to-brother “living” kidney transplant at Manchester Royal Infirmary.

From his hospital bed, Matthew, (35), of Thompson Lane, Chadderton, said: “Nathan collapsed and they rushed him into intensive care. There they found that both his kidneys had stopped working.

“I decided then that if I could help him out I would.”

Nathan, (30), from Middleton, had suffered health problems for six years but had been getting much better until he suddenly collapsed last July.

Both kidneys had failed and he was contemplating a bleak future on gruelling dialysis at home, while languishing on the transplant list, until his big brother selflessly put himself forward.

Younger sister Naomi (25), from Middleton, also offered to be a donor but doctors deemed her unsuitable, as she is yet to have children, and blood tests showed Matthew was a perfect match.

While concerned, Matthew’s wife Sarah and son Joseph (6) gave their blessings for him to undergo the operation.

Matthew said: “Dialysis can never fix you, it only keeps you going on a certain level and the average waiting time on the transplant list is six years to get a decent match.

“You are plugged into a machine four times a day for 90 minutes at a time and you can never be more than an hour away. It’s very tiring but without it you die.

“Me giving Nathan a kidney gets him off dialysis as soon as possible and the average person can easily survive on one kidney. I don’t see it as a massive thing for me — I can help my brother out and help him live a normal life. There are risks in everything you do and we were fully aware of the risk.”

Nathan said it was frightening to be struck down so suddenly. He added: “It was horrible and affected me a lot.

“But now, you can’t believe the change in me. It’s given me a completely new lease of life. I can’t thank Matthew enough.

“Only a very brave person can go through that. We were already close but it’s made us closer. I also have to thank the NHS for the work it has done.”