Teething problems

Kidney gave me a little jolt last week - a bit of trouble, a few nights of choosing to blink into the dark rather than close my eyes and dream the bad dreams. Visions of it all collapsing around me.

Were there any doubt that kidney is male, these have now been dealth with.

My blood results indicated a virus in my system, which caused something of a panic, because there are a few viral enemies that can strike and target the new organ, particularly in these early months.

We're talking the CMV, and we're talking the Polyoma.

I went away from the clinic with eyes shiny. I hated that day. I wandered, which is what I do when I am trying to out-run thoughts that are dark, and tomorrows that might be worse than today.

Then I went to the cinema, because big pictures and loud sounds are welcome at those times.

Repeat tests yesterday brought relief from the worry. The viral something seems to have come and almost gone without having caused any disturbance.

Emmet is still a brilliance in there. I saw him. I heard him. An ultrasound that was ordered just to ensure everything was still okay gave me a chance to have a look at him for the first time.

A remarkable moment for me. I was as emotional as the actress who over-plays that scene when she has a scan of her baby.

Emmet is a beauty. As regards my own kidneys, well, the radiographer couldn't even find them initially, they are that small now. Total losers.

It's been a strange few days, a little bit of limbo re-visited. It reminded me that with hope, there is also the possibility of disappointment. With this good health, I exist now on a knife-edge.

Turns out, so does everyone else.

To whom it concerns

In my life, I have received correspondence of all kinds, written with a whole range of purposes. Love letters from boys who came and went; notes in my lunchbox from my mother, when I had been bold and she had been mad and both of us fools were regretful.

There have been letters of rejection from employers who didn't see it in me; scraps of paper passed in class, about the disco at the weekend or with the latest of who was shifting whom; many, many windowed envelopes with hospital appointments laid out inside.

I like getting letters. I like seeing a new email in my inbox. And I know of nobody who doesn't feel some small anticipation at the sound of the letterbox flapping in the morning. Something for my eyes only, from someone who thought me worthy of some words today.

In recent weeks, I have received a different type of correspondence from families who are strangers to me. Hearts broken, grief still clawing away at their door, they have found it within themselves to write.

One mum and dad told me of their son; another mum wrote to me of her daughter. Both young, both beautiful inside and out, both at the start, at the beginning of everything their lives should have held. Both now gone.

The sad stories that these two families have to tell have in common the decision to donate the organs of their children. In fact, in both these cases, the boy and the girl had made their wishes known in conversations with their parents before their donor cards were tragically transformed, from a good intention into a good deed done.

The correspondence from these parents has been welcome. They heard of me through my appearance in newspapers after my transplant. They have wished me well, and I know they mean it.

I have responded to them as best I can. Difficult to make the pen and paper connect and produce some thoughts that may comfort them, but writing back, and giving them the small happiness that comes from the receipt of a letter or an email, that is the least I can do.

I feel in some way as though I owe them, that I owe donor families the world over.

To be indebted like this though, it is no burden at all.