A FAMILY man with kidney disease is appealing for a healthy kidney so he can see his daughters grow up.
Jonathan Pearson, 41, who believes in the kindness of strangers, is asking for someone to donate one of their kidneys so he can live without the need to go on dialysis with reduced life expectancy.
Jonathan, who lives in Broadway West, Newton, Chester, with his wife Rhiannon and daughters Victoria, five and Angelina, four, has polycystic kidney disease and is in the final stages of renal failure.
He said: “I want to be around for the kids. I want to see them grow up and be there for them. We’re just hoping for a miracle.”
Jonathan, who runs a pest control business, is increasingly tired and must take a cocktail of drugs to bring down the associated high blood pressure to prevent a stroke.
He says dialysis can have a serious impact on health and transplanted kidneys from bodies do not last as long as from a matched live donor.
His parents are a match but too old, his brother does not feel his health is good enough and unluckily his close friends are the wrong blood type.
“The only option we have is someone doing it out of kindness,” said Jonathan, who met his wife Rhiannon, 38, a school teacher, while they were studying at Manchester University.
She said: “If Jon wasn’t there it would leave a big gap in our lives and great sadness. It would be quite amazing for somebody to do it. It would be totally unselfish.”
Anyone who would like to be tested to see if they would be a match for Jonathan can contact Jean Shallcross, live donor transplant coordinator, Renal Transplant team, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Prescot Street, Liverpool, L7 8XP.
