A FATHER has spoken of his joy after giving his son the life-saving gift of a kidney.
Frank Rooney asked to be tested as a possible donor the day his little boy John Paul was born with an extremely rare kidney problem.
Three years later the father and son from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, had the transplant surgery and, just two weeks on, they are recovering well.
Mr Rooney, 30, who owns his own business, said: "People always say you would do anything for your kids and it's true.
"When I think of the amount of pain he has gone through, two weeks of pain for me is nothing."
John Paul was diagnosed with kidney problems in the womb. John Paul, Mr Rooney and his partner Maryanne's first child, had to be delivered a month early so he could receive emergency medical treatment for his prune belly syndrome - a rare genetic disorder that affects the kidneys and bladder.
Babies with the illness, have no abdominal muscles or very weak abdominal muscles and can be born with extra wrinkled skin on their bellies.
Since being allowed home at three weeks old, John Paul has needed round-the-clock care, including dialysis at home every night and weekly visits to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill, Glasgow.
It had been hoped that his condition, which affects just one in 40,000 births, would be managed by drugs but doctors realised a transplant would be necessary.
His mother and father were tested for compatibility and Mr Rooney was found to be a 99% match.
Mr Rooney said: "I thought I would be able to do it immediately but they said we would have to wait until he was bigger. The process was a lot simpler than I thought. The tests are meant to take around nine months but I took lots of cancelled appointments so I had all the tests in seven weeks."
The couple have raised almost £5000 for Yorkhill to say thank you for the care their son has received so far.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article