By Lesley Walsh
A BALLYGOWAN woman, whose life was changed by sudden kidney failure in her twenties, is among a trio of local organ donors and recipients bound for Germany to take part in the World Transplant Games.
Kathryn Glover who is 44, is facing the Transplant Games as a seasoned veteran, alongside sisters from Bangor and a full contingent from Northern Ireland.
A teacher at Cedar Integrated Primary School in Crossgar, Kathryn had never suffered issues with her kidneys before the life-changing phase of her life began.
“I was on a girls’ holiday in Malta post graduation and I took a very, very bad gastroenteritis and developed a horrible rash on my leg.”
She later found blood in her urine and six months later, she developed what doctors diagnosed as IgA nephropathy, a kidney disease which she couldn’t help but wonder was related to the holiday rash.
Doctors, however, never made that connection and said it was a random occurrence of the disease and she was soon on dialysis.
“I was six months from getting married and I took my dialysis machine with me on my honeymoon to Whistler in Canada; I’m just one of those people who just get on with things,” she said.
“I spent four years on dialysis which I did at home,” she said, before the long-awaited call came in 2009 that a kidney had been found for her.
Stating she was more musical growing up and ‘never really sporty’ before her transplant, she said she signed up to a challenge offered through a daily newspaper to participate in the British Transplant Games, in 2011.
Now, she has competed in 13 British Transplant Games and four previous World Transplant Games.
“This will be my fifth since I started,” she said. Kathryn will be competing in the 50 metres backstroke, 100 metres breaststroke, discus and triathlon relay.
Her life as a transplant sportswoman first took her as far as Argentina, for her very first World Transplant Games in 2015, where she earned four medals.
Kathryn has emulated those sporting heights in successive Games, the last in Perth, Australia in 2023 and now has a clutch of medals – gold, silver and bronze to her name.
She said the support she has received from Ards and North Down has been vital, providing a Gold Card which gave her free use of all the borough’s leisure services during her training.
Catherine McKeown, organ donation promotion manager with the Public Health Agency, said the Games help to demonstrate the benefits of transplantation whilst increasing public awareness of the need for more people to join the NHS Organ Donation Register and discuss their organ donation decision with their families.
“These inspirational athletes, both transplant recipients and living donors, are a testament to the gift of life given through organ donation,” said Catherine.
She said the Northern Ireland team is coordinated by Transplant Sport Northern Ireland (TSNI), a charity which encourages sports in the rehabilitation of transplant patients.
