SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Weeks af­ter cel­e­brat­ing her 40th birth­day, Re­bec­ca Welch got her long await­ed, life-chang­ing gift—a new kid­ney.

The kid­ney has giv­en Welch who suf­fered re­nal fail­ure for four years a new lease on life.

Welch, 44, will nev­er know if her kid­ney came from a liv­ing or de­ceased donor, as this is kept a se­cret by the hos­pi­tal per­form­ing the kid­ney trans­plant.

Grow­ing up as a child, Welch suf­fered with no ill­ness­es or med­ical con­di­tion.

How­ev­er, in 2011, Welch no­ticed her feet sud­den­ly be­gan to swell. At first, Welch thought her Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme and night nurse jobs were re­spon­si­ble for her en­larged feet.

"I came to the con­clu­sion that I was stand­ing on my legs too long and need­ed some rest," Welch re­called.

But de­spite eas­ing up on her work­load, Welch saw no im­prove­ment.

"That's when things start­ed to go down­hill with me," she said.

Welch al­so ob­served that she was los­ing weight rapid­ly—from 180 pounds, Welch had turned in­to skin and bones.

"I lost 110 pounds in a mat­ter of months and be­gan wear­ing pam­pers be­cause I had no con­trol over my bow­el move­ment," said Welch, who lives at Coal Mine, San­gre Grande.

She al­so vom­it­ed reg­u­lar­ly.

"A con­stant pain had tak­en over my frail body."

Sens­ing some­thing was rad­i­cal­ly wrong with her health, Welch did a se­ries of blood tests at a pri­vate in­sti­tu­tion which showed that her lone kid­ney was fail­ing.

While most peo­ple are born with two kid­neys, Welch nev­er knew she had on­ly one kid­ney on the right.

As she fought her bat­tles, Welch was hit with an­oth­er blow.

The fa­ther of her two el­dest chil­dren, Stephen Boodoo, was gunned down in the Cara­po for­est with two oth­er men.

"The three of them were all ex­e­cut­ed. Their killers placed bags over their faces and shot them in their heads. His (Boodoo) part­ners had stolen mar­i­jua­na un­known to him and his life was tak­en," she said.

Welch was told that she need­ed dial­y­sis three times a week to re­move the ex­cess wa­ter, solutes and tox­ins from her blood, as her kid­ney was no longer per­form­ing nat­u­ral­ly.

As she tried to come to terms with the shock­ing news, Welch said peo­ple in San­gre Grande be­gan to say all kinds of deroga­to­ry and hurt­ful things about her when she be­gan los­ing the weight.

Some scorned Welch, while oth­ers made in­sen­si­tive com­ments, laughed and shunned her.

With­out know­ing the facts, Welch said peo­ple be­gan spread­ing ru­mours that she was HIV pos­i­tive, she said.

"Once you start to lose weight that is the first thing peo­ple does say...you have HIV. It had peo­ple who say I get more ug­ly. There was a lot of neg­a­tive com­ments. While it had those in my com­mu­ni­ty who was very sym­pa­thet­ic to­wards me."

As Welch re­count­ed her tri­als and tribu­la­tions, tears welled in her eyes.

"It’s dif­fi­cult talk­ing about the past and what I went through. Sick­ness doesn't dis­crim­i­nate. To­day you good and to­mor­row you are down. That is how life is. And if you are not strong to fight the odds you will go down."

On her left arm, Welch point­ed to a huge un­sight­ly scar left be­hind by a fis­tu­la which is an ab­nor­mal pas­sage­way that con­nect two or­gans.

Welch re­mem­bered ap­proach­ing the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal for dial­y­sis, but due to the num­ber of pa­tients wait­ing to be treat­ed for re­nal fail­ure she opt­ed to pay for the ser­vice at a pri­vate in­sti­tu­tion.

For each dial­y­sis treat­ment, Welch had to fork out $1,000.

With her life hang­ing in the bal­ance, Welch re­mem­bered dip­ping in­to her chil­dren’s month­ly pub­lic as­sis­tance grant and life sav­ings to pay for the treat­ment.

"In all, I spent $30,000 in treat­ment. It wasn’t an easy road. I faced many hur­dles along the way. My great­est con­cern was my chil­dren be­cause they didn’t have a moth­er to look af­ter them as I spent many days in the In­ten­sive Care Unit fight­ing for my life. That is what pained me the most but with God all things are pos­si­ble. I start­ed re­cov­er­ing."

Welch said de­spite not be­ing around her chil­dren reg­u­lar­ly, they have made her proud by do­ing well in the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tions.

"I don't know what would have hap­pened to them if I was dead."

In 2013, the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal be­gan pro­vid­ing Welch with dial­y­sis while she hunt­ed for a suit­able donor.

Fam­i­ly and friends of Welch who were test­ed as po­ten­tial donors were not com­pat­i­ble, while her sec­ond hus­band and fa­ther of her two younger chil­dren was not a match.

Welch said she prayed dai­ly for a mir­a­cle.

"Go­ing to the hos­pi­tal fright­ened me be­cause I saw dial­y­sis pa­tients dy­ing while seek­ing treat­ment. I of­ten won­dered if I would have been next. I was los­ing faith and hope. But a voice with­in told me not to give up as a donor would soon be found."

On De­cem­ber 31, 2015, Welch said her prayers were an­swered—doc­tors at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in­formed her that they had lo­cat­ed a suit­able donor and that same day a kid­ney trans­plant was per­formed.

"I am liv­ing a sec­ond life, thanks to my donor. I will nev­er know who my donor is but I will for­ev­er be grate­ful to him or her and God for giv­ing me a new lease on life."

Welch said she now lives life to the fullest.