News, Yorkshire
A dentist has said it was a “gift for me” to be able to donate a kidney to his son, who was facing end-stage kidney disease.
Alex Roberts was diagnosed with an auto-immune condition in December 2023, meaning his options were either a transplant or life-long dialysis treatment.
The 34-year-old, from Huddersfield, is now recovering from surgery after receiving a kidney from his dad, Dr John Roberts, 66.
John said it had given him a reason to “slow down” and live a more healthy life, adding: “I’m more grateful to Alex, though I know my kidney has given Alex a new lease of life.”
“You’ve got to act as a father first,” said John, who is now based near Edinburgh.
“Once you suddenly realise that this is a real problem, something that could – and may have, 100 years ago – shortened Alex’s life, you ask: ‘what can we do?'”
John had his first tests in February 2024 to check his eligibility, with more over the following months.
“It really is like a computer game”, he said, as he advanced from stage to stage of health checks at his local hospital in Edinburgh.
“I was thinking: ‘I’m getting a free [health] MOT, here.'”
Final tests took place in January 2025 in Leeds, and the operation was set for 4 March.
On the day of the transplant, John arrived at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds at 07:30 GMT.
“It’s nil-by-mouth from 12 o’clock the night before, so I went out for fish and chips – always God’s food,” he said.
He was taken into a room to get changed into “these very fashionable stockings and clothes”, before walking to theatre with medics.
“It was surreal. I did some of my undergraduate [dentistry] training there, 40-odd years ago,” he said.
John had a chat with his surgeon and requested Pink Floyd as the soundtrack to the operation.
“I was able to lie down, trust whoever was going to do it, and I knew it was all going to be fine”, he said, knowing that if anything went wrong, “the team will deal with it”.
John’s operation lasted about three hours.
“I just remember waking up, and even as a dentist, I had a couple of nice bars of chocolate,” he said.
While he has noticed the difference of having one kidney, with symptoms such as fatigue, John said he was “slowly getting myself back again”.
“They don’t know how long the kidney will last before Alex may need another transplant, which could come from one of his brothers,” he said.
John said they met another man in hospital “who’d had a kidney done before Alex was born. [Alex] is 34”.
“If it lasts another 34 years, my kidney is then 100 years old and I’m more than happy with that,” he said.
Alex said: “When you find out you have end-stage kidney disease, you get slapped in the face with the idea of your own mortality.
“My transplant was only a week ago so I’m sore, but my vitals are all improving daily.
“My wife says I look years younger again, I’m happier, and I can eat food I’ve had to avoid for the last year, like potatoes and tomatoes, so I’m really positive and optimistic for the future again.”
Alex and John are sharing their story in the hope it will encourage others to become living donors.
According to the NHS, currently 430 people are waiting for a kidney transplant, and 81 people are waiting for a liver transplant in Leeds.
Around 60 live kidney donor transplants are carried out each year for patients across West Yorkshire and the Humber, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust says.
