Laura's last wish
Rachel with her daughter Laura before disaster struck
Thursday 5th June 2008
At first, I thought I was dreaming. I was lying in bed, but no matter how hard I tried to move, nothing happened. Above me, my lamp shade drifted in and out of focus. It was morning, and I was awake. Wasn't I?
Suddenly, my dad, Jack, 77, floated above me.
'Help is coming,' he mouthed.
His voice was so distant. Why couldn't I move? Then, my daughter, Laura, 18, appeared. Her face was red and puffy. Wake up! I thought, as their faces blurred to blackness. I did wake up — in the high-dependency unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary.
It was February this year, and Dad had found me in a diabetic coma. My blood-sugar levelshad been dangerously high, and I could have died if Dad hadn't discovered me. It was a fact Laura was finding hard to swallow.
'I just want you to get better,' she said. 'The doctors don't seem
to be in any rush to help.'
I grasped her hand.
'There's not a lot they can do about my diabetes,' I reminded her.
But that wasn't the real issue. The diabetes I'd developed while pregnant with Laura had caused kidney failure. Five years earlier, I'd been on the national transplant list, and had been given a stranger's kidney. Unfortunately, it had failed. Now, my relatives were queuing up to give me one of theirs. Especially Laura. Ever since I'd split from her dad, Martin Thomas, 39, when she was a baby, it had just been the two of us.
She'd been 13 when she'd sat beside me in St Luke's Hospital in Bradford, and listened to the doctor explain that I had kidney failure, and that I needed a transplant.
'She can have mine,' she'd said.
'You're a little young,' the doctor had smiled.
'But I want to help Mum get better,' she'd protested.
If she'd offered once, she'd offered a million times over those next few years. But I had no intention of taking my daughter's kidney. Even when she turned 18, and could legally donate, I wouldn't have dreamed of it.
Laura had her own problems. She suffered from bouts of rheumatoid arthritis in her hands and feet, and had asthma, too. Then, just after her 18th birthday, she found out she was pregnant. My granddaughter, Macie, was 2 now, and Laura had split from Macie's dad, Sean Murch, 23. It was one more reason to turn down her offer.
'You're a mum now,' I said. 'You need to stay fit for your little girl.'
Anyway, my sister, Carol Spence, 51, had offered to be a donor, and she was a match.
We were waiting for the hospital to give us the green light.
'Why are they dragging their feet?' Laura fumed.
'It'll happen, love,' I reassured her.
'But when?' she snapped.
She was a feisty little madam. In those following weeks, Laura turned 19, and enjoyed girly nights out with her mates. Then, one morning, two months after I'd been discharged from hospital, she shuffled into the kitchen, wheezing.Her asthma had got worse of late. Had she been partying too much?
'How are you feeling, Darth Vader?' I chuckled.
It was my nickname for Laura, because of her heavy breathing.
'Could you get my inhalers?' she gasped. I handed them over. Collapsing onto a chair, she sucked deeply on each one.
'OK?' I asked, serious this time.
She couldn't answer. Eyes wide, she slapped her hand against her chest, desperate for air.
'Stop messing around,' I snapped.
But it was no joke. I darted towards her, just in time to catch her as she fell off her chair. Grabbing the phone with one hand, I sank to the floor and rested her head in my lap.
'You'll be fine,' I said, dialling 999.
'Help!' I shrieked at the operator. 'My daughter can't breathe.'
You can't imagine how helpless I felt, as Laura looked up at me, terrified, opening and closing her mouth. A horrible, clacking sound vibrated in her throat.
'Hold on, love,' I begged.
Just then, Dad walked into the kitchen, so I sent him outside to direct the ambulance. Finally, three paramedics burst in. They tried to get a tube down Laura's throat, but I could tell it was hopeless. Her airways had closed. As they bundled her into the ambulance, I remembered Macie. She was upstairs, in her room, watching Dora The Explorer.
'I'll follow on,' I said.
As quick as I could, I got Macie dressed and took her to nursery. When Dad and I arrived at Bradford Royal Infirmary, a nurse led us to a side room.
'Laura's on a life-support machine,' she explained. 'She'll have suffered brain damage.'
I was due to have my dialysis in a few hours, and I was already weak. My legs buckled.
'Where is she?' I begged.
I was taken to Laura's bedside in a wheelchair. Her blue eyes were open, but she wasn't conscious.
'I'm here, sweetheart,' I whispered. 'Macie's fine.'
I saw her face twitch. As I sat in St Luke's Hospital across town, having my dialysis that afternoon, I cried and cried, but I still felt hope. Worst-case scenario — Laura was brain damaged. We'll bring her home and look after her, I thought.
But that wasn't the worst- case scenario. Two days later, the doctor came to see us.
'I'm so sorry,' he said. 'Laura is brain dead.'
They planned to turn off her life-support machine. Never, in my worst nightmares, had I thought she'd die. Now, as I called her friends to break the news, I felt numb. Laura's friends gathered and, the following day, I was sitting with her mate, Stephanie Kelly, 19, and her mum, Mandy, when a transplant coordinator arrived.
'Your daughter carried an organ donor card,' she said.
'She did?' I mumbled.
I knew she'd always wanted to donate her kidney to me, but I hadn't known she'd registered. Suddenly, Steph spoke up. 'That means Laura's mum can have one of her kidneys, doesn't it?' she said. It hadn't even crossed my mind. But of course, that would have been Laura's final wish.
'No,' the coordinator replied.
What?
She told us there was a law against directed donorship.
'But it was Laura's dream,' Steph protested.
The coordinator shook her head. There was nothing she could do.
Steph and her mum stormed off, as I sat by Laura's bed and wept. We were disputing her organ donation, but what mattered was my baby wasn't coming home. Later, Steph phoned to say they'd been on the phone to our MP, Gerry Sutcliffe, who'd called the hospital.
'They won't budge,' she cried.
I felt numb.The nurses took copies of Laura's hand prints in ink for me, and snipped off 10 locks of her dark hair. Then I sat on her bed and stroked her hair.
'I'll look after Macie,' I told her. 'She'll grow up knowing what a wonderful mum she had.'
Laura was warm. Her complexion was rosy. How could she be dead? At 10pm, medics arrived to take her down to theatre. I held her hand as they wheeled her along the corridor. Outside the theatre, I had to say goodbye.
'I love you,' I whispered, kissing her cheek.
Then the theatre doors swung open and swallowed up my Laura.
Back home, the grief was agony. The following day, the transplant coordinator rang.
'Would you like to know which of Laura's organs were donated?' she asked.
'Y-yes,' I heard myself reply.
I listened, my body trembling, as she told me Laura's kidneys had been donated to two men, one from Sheffield, the other from London. Her liver had been given to a 15-year-old girl.
But one of those kidneys should have been mine, I wanted to say.
It sounds selfish, doesn't it? But I know Laura would have wanted her kidney to live on in me, rather than a stranger. It had been her dream since she was a teenager.
'She'd be heartbroken,' I wept to Dad.
'I know, love,' he replied.
Laura's funeral was held at St Andrew's Church, in Oakenshaw, 13 days after we turned off her life-support machine. Her dad's sister, Dawn Thomas, 43, sang You Raise Me Up. Afterwards, we released hundreds of pink balloons. Even now, two months since Laura's death, we still haven't found the right words to explain to Macie. She's living with me during
the week, and Sean at weekends.
I'm hoping to hear about my transplant any day now. Carol and I are on standby. But I feel like I've let Laura down. I failed to make her wish come true .I just have to remind myself that Laura's organs have saved three people's lives. The recipients are all doing well, and I know, given time, this will bring me comfort and I'll feel proud of my caring, generous daughter.
What do you think? Should Laura's kidney have gone to save her mum's life? Vote now here!