[attach id=318740 size="medium"]Chris Bartolo already feels better. Photo: Paul Zammit Cutajar[/attach]
Since renal patient Chris Bartolo had his kidney transplant last month, he has been “reborn” and he is now able to enjoy simple pleasures – such as eating. He is also glad because doctors told him he may not have to undergo an operation to remove a blood clot that formed near his new kidney.
The condition seems to be sorting itself out naturally and, so long as this continued, there would be no need for an operation, he said.
“Before I didn’t have an appetite, but now it came back.I’m so grateful to the donor as he literally gave me life, much in the same way as my mother did. I am reborn and I already feel so much better,” Mr Bartolo told Times of Malta over the phone from hospital where he is recovering.
“I’m doing well. I really can’t grumble. Blood tests show I’m improving,” he said.
He is now looking forward to leaving hospital soon to get on with his life.
On February 19 Mr Bartolo underwent an eight-hour operation – two years after this newspaper first reported his need for a kidney.
I’m so grateful to the donor
His former partner, Sarah Borg, had drawn the nation’s attention to his plight two years ago when she posted a request for a kidney on the Church of Malta Facebook page. She then posted an advert on Malta Park.
About 20 people offered to donate a kidney but the hospital’s Live Organ Transplant Advisory Committee did not allow strangers to specifically give one to him.
Their kidney had to go to whoever was most in need. A family friend was then found to be an eligible match to Mr Bartolo.