Stop the boat! Woman's amazing race home from cruise trip for new kidney
A Sydney woman is looking forward to a new life after a truly remarkable effort to get her to the operating table.
Kathie John has patiently waited for a kidney transplant but when the call finally came she was about a thousand kilometres from home, aboard a cruise liner.
After six years of waiting on dialysis she has a new kidney but it took an amazing race by air, land and sea.
She was with other dialysis patients on the Emerald Princess when the call came that a kidney was available.
Kathie had just hours to make it to hospital in Sydney and she was on a ship in Bass Strait.
“I was thinking what the hell do I do I didn't know how I was getting off it,” she told 7 News.
However help would come from everywhere, between Princess Cruises, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Los Angeles the ship was turned around.
“As we turned around to the north west we then increased speed we came up to full speed,” Captain William Kent told 7 News.
Off the Victorian coast an air ambulance arrived to get Kathie off the only way possible.
“I got winched up into a helicopter which was awesome,” she told 7 News.
“It was exciting I like it,” she said.
“Having been at sea for 42 years it's certainly a first for me,” Captain William Kent.
As with all transplants, time was of the essence for Kathie’s operation to occur.
“For patients they can wait on average five to seven years and if they miss that opportunity that could be gone for another five years potentially,” Paul Robertson the Transplant Coordinator Westmead Hospital told 7 News.
The difference between having a kidney transplant and not having a kidney transplant could mean literally life and death.
After being winched off the Emerald Princess, Kathie was choppered to Bairnsdale, Victoria and from there flown by fixed wing plane to Sydney's Bankstown Airport from there driven by ambulance to Westmead Hospital where surgeons worked through the night.
“Thank you, to them, the captain, crew, pilots, drivers, family, friends, everyone,” Kathie said.
Kathie will have another week in hospital then regular visits to check her progress but early signs are positive that her dream of just being able to live a normal life is coming true.
“Just freedom, I can do anything I want now. I can go travel anywhere I want you know not have to worry about hooking up to a machine,” she told 7 News.
Kathie is still in hospital, covered in tubes and wires but smiling.
“Good, bit sore but yeah feeling really good,” she told 7 News.
A new journey, just beginning has just begun for Kathie.
Today's top news stories- January 6
