Brendan McArdle from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, is advertising and marketing manager with The Irish Field and a well-known RTÉ radio and Sky show-jumping commentator.

In June of this year, he faced a huge decision – whether to donate a kidney to his younger brother, Colin, who had already been on dialysis for over three years because of kidney disease. Tests had shown that he was the only match in the family.

Never a person who liked doctors or needles, Brendan knew it was a big decision. “To be honest I wasn’t jumping up and down at the thought of the operation and everything it involved,” he says. “I suppose it’s only natural to think of yourself but I knew it was Colin’s only option.”

A cancellation meant that the operation was timetabled for 2 July rather than September.

When he got the unexpected call to ask if he’d do the operation sooner than intended, Brendan admits he felt emotional.

“I went off on my own for a while to think about it,” he says. “I didn’t want to be emotional down the phone to Colin so I sent him a long text message. He sent back a text saying ‘I may get the cash ready so!’ We were always slagging one another.. A month later we were in Beaumont.”

Modestly, Brendan doesn’t believe that giving a kidney to his brother was a massive gesture. “I’m just glad that one of us in the family was able to help him out. It’s only when you see kidney disease patients’ experience first-hand that you appreciate what people are actually going through because of the illness.

“It’s three days a week on dialysis, six hours out of your day, you’re tired, yellow in colour, you don’t have any energy ... it’s pretty rough,” he says.

Brendan was conscious that transplants sometimes don’t work, however. “I was thinking of Joe Brolly who had given a friend a kidney but it didn’t work, so that’s something that stays in your mind. Being able to do it was a gift and it was a gift that it worked,” he says.

Brendan was in a good frame of mind when he was going to theatre. “I felt reassured by the team at that stage. I remember Colin ringing me straight after the operation and I was relieved he was okay too. I had lots of pain relief so it wasn’t so bad and even the catheter situation wasn’t as big a deal as I was afraid it would be.”

He left the hospital five days later and by 6.40 that evening was back working on RTÉ Radio sport.

“That’s because I’d broken a story regarding Denis Lynch, the Irish international show jumper who had a horse complication in Aachen so I wasn’t out of action for long.”

A THANKFUL CHRISTMAS

This Christmas words can’t describe how we will probably feel, he says.

“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster year for the family. I’m looking forward to us all being round the table this year especially having our grandmother there who is 94 and still taking orders for turkeys at McCaghey foods in Castleblayney!

“I suppose Colin and I both realise that it could have gone wrong but thank God it didn’t. I know that he’ll look after the kidney and that he really appreciates getting it. I don’t need anything from him but he has promised to organise a fundraiser for the Irish Kidney Association or Beaumont Hospital – maybe before the first anniversary of the operation.

“I feel great overall and I’ll be glad if what I’ve done encourages other people to donate too.

“It’s great to see Colin feeling better – he was able to go to the Horse Show for two days this year –I can’t remember when he last went for that length of time.”

For more information or to request an organ donor card see www.ika.ie

Colin’s story

Colin McArdle, one of Brendan’s younger brothers, is a 36-year-old farmer. He didn’t have any kidney trouble until 2002, he says.

Frequent headaches brought him to the doctor but there was no definite diagnosis early on.

It was when he visited his optician thinking his eyesight needed to be checked that alarm bells rang.

“She asked me if I had high blood pressure or if I was diabetic and I said no. I went to my GP next morning and was sent straight to hospital because my blood pressure was sky high.”

Colin was later sent to Beaumont Hospital where tests revealed that he had kidney disease.

He was on tablets and “up and down to Beaumont Hospital” for a couple of years after that for check-ups, he says, and was told at first that dialysis wouldn’t be necessary for twenty years or so.

In 2008, however, he knew it was needed as his condition had deteriorated more rapidly than expected.

“I was on dialysis for the guts of three and a half years after that – until Brendan gave me the kidney,” he says.

Dialysis meant travel to Beaumont Hospital three days a week from then on.

“The only time it got to me was when I’d be feeling sick coming home but the way I looked at it was that there was a lot of people worse off. If you’d cancer or something you’d have no heed on doing anything.”

Colin was put on the transplant list in 2009.

This meant waiting for the phone call that would mean the life-transforming operation thanks to an unknown donor. Another option was possible, however.

“The doctors told us that family members could be tested – and Brendan turned out to be a match.”

Colin appreciates that it was a huge thing for his brother to do.

“I know myself if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d be saying I don’t want to do it but then at the other end you’d know you’d have to do it. Going into the operation I was feeling glad that it would soon be over and done with and I knew I owed Brendan but there was also the fear that it could fail too.”

Colin remembers Brendan stopping by his room on the way down to theatre on the morning of 2 July.

“He stuck his thumb up and said ‘I’ll see you after’ and away he went..”

Colin had no fears around the operation itself. “That’s because I knew the staff so well and that everything was done to clockwork and perfection there. When I came round I was on the phone straight away to Brendan and the family. I was flying, not a bother… The relief was huge.”

“Christmas for me will be at home with the family, glad that the operation is over and that it went well and especially that Brendan come through it well, so there’s a lot to be thankful for.”

Colin and Brendan would both like to thank Beaumont Hospital staff for their medical care and work colleagues and family for their tremendous support. They also want to urge support for Joe Brolly’s “opt-out” system of organ donation, and, in the meantime, to ask people to please carry a donor card.