World Transplant Game: How Watford player scored post-surgery goal

Seven years after his kidney and liver transplant, Andy Taylor is about to take part in the World Transplant Games. With more than 7,000 people on the transplant waiting list, he hopes more people will have “the conversation” with their loved ones about organ donation.

Andy Taylor, son of former British 10,000m record holder Don G Taylor, said sport had been his “story” all his life, growing up at his father's sports centre and playing racquet sports regularly.

But in 2014, he was skinny and had little energy. He struggled to even take one step inside his house, and remembers bending over to tie his shoelaces only to find he had no muscle left and was unable to stand up.

The 57-year-old from Watford Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)This is an inherited condition that causes fluid-filled cysts to grow in the kidneys, which can become large and eventually cause kidney failure.

He was warned in 2012 that he would need a kidney transplant in about two years.

“I knew this was coming, but it was still a bit of a shock,” he said.

“But then her kidneys started to get bigger and she looked like she was pregnant.”

The plan in 2014 was to have a bilateral nephrectomy (surgery to remove his kidneys), followed by three months of dialysis treatment, and then a kidney transplant from a close friend, who had already been found to be a suitable donor.

But then it was discovered that his liver was also polycystic, meaning his kidneys had to be removed and he would have to wait for both a liver and a kidney from the same person, lowering his chances of receiving a transplant.

“After my kidney removal surgery, I literally lost all kidney function overnight and couldn't make any plans. It took a toll on me mentally,” he said.

He added that the next two years on the transplant list were a “challenge.”

His liver grew to fill the space around his kidneys and began to encroach on his other organs, affecting his ability to eat and breathe.

He underwent dialysis three times a week for five hours each, and restricted his fluid intake between sessions to just 500ml.

“They say dialysis is comparable to deep sea diving in the amount of energy it robs your body of, so I try to sleep five hours and then go to bed in the afternoon,” he said.

“After the first session, I was crying on my way home thinking about what was going to happen.”

In Andy's case, his liver was large but still functioning, so if someone needed more help he would be moved down the list.

He said he is “physically able to manage” while waiting for a donor, but in reality he is “just getting by.”

“Mentally you put your life on hold. It's a big deal, so when you get the call it's very exciting.”

Andy received the call at 4am GMT one morning in January 2016 and rushed to King's College Hospital in London, where he underwent 10 hours of surgery and remained in hospital for 10 weeks.

“I woke up in intense pain and couldn't move, but I was alive,” he said.

Towards the end of his hospital stay, his sporting instincts began to awaken and he began walking short distances to leave the hospital.

“I was able to walk to the bathroom, be a sportsman and I set goals for myself like can I walk down the hallway,” he said.

But it was the transplant game that gave him purpose.

“It was always my goal to get back into the sport,” he said.

“At first I just wanted to walk through the countryside and see colour rather than the drab hospital walls.

“But sports is the story of my life. I needed to get back to it to get some sort of normalcy back.”

The following year, in 2017, he took part in Parkrun and thought: 'Right, I'm ready.'

“I had heard about the UK Transplant Games and as I had had a transplant it was my aim to get back to playing badminton so I went to the event in Newport in 2019 and had a great weekend,” he said.

He led his team to a silver medal in table tennis singles and a gold medal in badminton doubles.

Andy said his four-person table tennis team “represents pretty much every organ system” as some of his teammates have had heart and double lung transplants.

“It wasn't the best transplant, but everyone has a story. It's really uplifting,” he said.

“Everybody there understood. Everybody was on some kind of journey, everybody was like a superhero in some way.”

“One minute I was holding back tears and the next I was trying to beat them at table tennis. It was a strange contrast.”

COVID-19 put his plans to continue competing on hold – all competitors were immunocompromised and competition did not resume until 2022 – but he won two gold medals at the British Games and again at the European Championships in Oxford.

He will now represent Great Britain and Northern Ireland in both events at the World Transplant Games in Perth, Australia, on April 15th.

First held in Portsmouth in 1978, the seven-day event has attracted 2,500 participants from over 60 countries and is described as “the world's largest awareness-raising event about the blessings of life”.

“I'm very happy because this tournament symbolizes recovery and I'm representing my country,” Andy said.

“I am excited about this opportunity, honored to have been selected and thrilled by the anonymous organ donor's decision.”

He said the event celebrated “the life-changing and life-saving power of organ donation” and “promoted the benefits of sport and exercise after transplant.”

“This is a great recovery goal for people who have been through this process and if we can get more people to sign up, we can shorten the wait time,” he said.

“I may not win a gold medal in Perth, but I would like a medal for promoting organ donation.”

Organ Donation UK said more than 7,000 people are currently waiting for a transplant, including around 200 children.

By law, a person is presumed to support organ donation unless he or she refuses or tells his or her family that he or she does not want organ donation.

However, families should always be consulted, and if they refuse to support organ donation, the donation cannot go ahead.

The organization believes that families are more likely to support their loved ones if they know what they want, so everyone Register your support for donations.

An NHS Blood and Transplant spokesman said the Transplant Games “highlight and celebrate what is possible thanks to the incredible gift of organ donation”.

“More than 50,000 people in the UK are currently alive thanks to the generosity of people who agreed to donate their organs, either before or after their death,” he said.

“Thanks to our donors, people can get on with their lives, spend precious time with their families and make a difference in the world.”

Andy said the donor “changed my life.”

“Words can't express how grateful I am … it's all down to the NHS, the donors and their families and the decisions they made in dire circumstances,” he said.

“A good friend of mine once said that transplantation is a magical combination of love and science, and for me this is an opportunity to say, 'Let's have those conversations with the people we love.'”

“If relatives can say, 'That's what we would have wanted,' it gives them some comfort that they can make a decision in the full knowledge that that was what they would have wanted.”

“They're handing over a part of their loved one's life to someone else.”