Bridie - a mother's story

Michaela Morley was born on 17 December, 2004 with polysistic kidneys, thus in renal failure, among numerous other medical complications. Michaela started on haemodialysis when she was eighteen months old.

Unfortunately, home dialysis is not an option for Michaela, due to a frozen peritinium. Michaela has to endure a three hundred mile round trip to Dublin for haemodialysis, as pediatric haemodialysis is only carried out in Temple St. Hospital in Dublin. This means traveling to Dublin three days a week, i.e. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for this procedure. This is a huge disruption to family life for her, her big brother and the rest of our family. We leave home at 8 am and do not return home until 8 or 8.30 most evenings.

Michaela is a beautiful, intelligent, lively three year old who is always happy. My hope is that when she is “big enough”, she can go on the kidney transplant list and, hopefully, be successful in finding a suitable donor and receive the gift of a new kidney. This would mean a new life for her and, indeed, for the rest of our family.

I cannot stress enough the importance of organ donation,  said Bridie.

Bridie & Michaela (photo courtesy of Sunday Independent)

The wonderful news is that Michaela received a kidney transplant in December 2011, and now makes that long journey from Mayo to Temple St. just once a week.  Her quality of life has improved one hundred per cent thanks to the generosity of her donor and donor family.