The engineer with a private firm had a creatinine level of 19 while the normal level is 1.5.
At 52, Ulka Kalaskar gave her 27-year-old son, Jaykirti, a new lease of life after getting one herself.
She underwent a complicated bypass surgery so that she could be fit enough to donate one of her kidneys to him.
On Friday morning, Jaykirti was discharged from Jaslok Hospital completely cured. His ordeal started in February 2008 when fatigue got the better of him and he collapsed in office. An engineer with a private firm, Jaykirti was diagnosed with a kidney problem and put on haemo-dialysis at the MGM Hospital in Vashi.
“My creatinine level reached 19 without any apparent reason. The normal level is 1.5,” Jaykirti said. Initially, he did not tell his parents about the disease. When he realised that the four-hour dialysis sessions were a life-long affair he told them. “Their world came crashing down,” he said.
The dialysis sessions increased from once a week to twice a week and then to thrice. “Doctors suggested a transplant. But finding a kidney was very difficult.”
By this time, his mother, a school teacher in Ratnagiri, had lost a few kilos because of depression. When the talk of transplanting came up, Kalaskar volunteered. “My other two sons were willing to donate their kidneys,” she said. “But I felt they were too young for this. They are 22 and 24.”
The initial tests, however, revealed that she could not be the donor because she had major blockages in three of her arteries. “That day I cursed myself for ignoring the chest pain for years,” she said. “But I was determined to save my son. I told the doctors that they should make me fit enough so that I could give my kidney to my son.”
Doctors at Jaslok did a bypass surgery on her in March this year. Her son said she recovered in jet speed as if time was slipping out of their hands.
People usually take at six to 12 months to get on with their normal lives after a bypass surgery. But she was back in the hospital within six months, seeking a cardiac fitness certificate.
The transplant was carried out on October 9. “On the day of the transplant, she was lying next to me. I could not stop thanking her and god,” Jaykirti said. “After two mammoth surgeries, my mother is as fit as she was earlier.”
Kalaskar said any mother would have done the same thing. “Now, I have to look for a bride for him,” she said.
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