Chris on a crusade of life

I am one of the lucky ones, Chris Bogers explains. “I had to wait two-and-a-half years to get a kidney – most people wait 12 years or more... it is fairly common to die before you get one.”

Bogers was thrown a lifeline when a long lost friend, Janet Stone of Gonubie, read about his desperate plight in the Daily Dispatch and offered to donate a kidney – if it was a match.

After a series of tests and completing mountains of paperwork – between hours-long dialysis sessions in East London three times a week – the avid surfer was wheeled into surgery with Stone and one of her kidneys was transplanted into his body late last year.

“Going for dialysis is like staring death in the face, they pump you so full of poisons and toxins that it affects your brain and you become irrational.

“The dialysis keeps you alive, without it your body starts shutting down. It is a nightmare waking up each day knowing that you could die unless a kidney is found.”

After spending several months worrying if the donor kidney would work, Bogers was recently given a clean bill of health and is now riding the waves again – less than six months after the transplant.

Although he is far healthier than he has been in years, he still has to take a cocktail of 11 immuno suppressants a day for the rest of his life to curb high blood pressure and other possible complications.

“If I don’t take them the kidney could possibly reject and I would be in trouble.”

According to Bogers, he also has to try and stay out of the sun as much as he can as the medication can lead to cancer if he spends to much time outdoors.

“Having a transplant is not an instant cure, I thought I would feel better as soon as I got it but I am still recovering six months later.”

After years of anxiously waiting to find a donor before Stone stepped in to help, Chris and his wife, Linda, say they are grateful he has been given a second chance to pay it forward.

“Our whole outlook on life has changed,” he said. “Even though getting a new kidney has not fixed all the problems, it has given us a new perspective on life.”

According to Linda, having a positive attitude despite the hardships is key to surviving major illness.

She said people were conditioned from birth to think negatively when it came to illness and hardship. “The minute you alter your perception, the chemistry of your body changes. A positive attitude helps, Chris was a grumpy old man a lot of the time before he got sick but now he is a different person.

“Not all diseases are about bad genetics, it is about how you think, negative thoughts create ‘dis ease’ in your body.”

According to Chris, staring death in the face for so long before Stone stepped in to help had resulted in him changing the way he thought of life.

“It made me get rid of all the negative energy in my life and I now look at things differently. You must embrace the good, bad and the ugly.”

Since the transplant, the couple have dedicated themselves to trying to encourage people to become organ donors and to help people overcome their fear of having lifesaving transplants.

“If one person in every 100 becomes an organ donor when they die, there would be nobody sitting on death row waiting for transplants.

“It is about raising awareness... when you’re dead you don’t need your organs anymore and you can help someone else to live longer.”

Besides raising awareness on the need for more people to become organ donors, Linda said they also planned to try and lobby for less government red tape and delays when it comes to having transplants.

“We want to try and pay it forward. Waiting for years to find a match and then having to wait even longer for the transplant is very emotional and stressful.

“It is often harder for the partner who feels very helpless because there is nothing they can do about it.”

Although becoming a organ donor takes 10 minutes online, Chris said it was important to get family consent to prevent them later refusing when a person died and their organs were urgently needed to save someone else.

“There is a high rate of refusal from family – without their consent organs cannot be transplanted from a dead person.”

According to Stone, even though her whole family had always been open to the idea of her becoming an organ and tissue donor she had never taken the plunge and registered.

Since she gave Chris a new lease of life through giving him one of her kidneys, she has taken the plunge and signed up – along with many of her friends.

“It saddens me to see so many appeals for organs on Facebook and other media, knowing there are so many potential donors out there who just haven’t given the idea any thought or haven’t been exposed to the relevant information.”

Since the transplant, Stone has shared their story with small groups of people and plans to get involved with Bogers and his wife Linda to raise awareness about becoming a donor.

She also plans to try and raise funds to help people without medical aid as the costs can be prohibitive.

“It is great seeing Chris and Linda, but I get an even bigger kick out of knowing that while I’m hanging up washing, my other kidney might just be off enjoying the surf somewhere.”