Charity Nyakeo and her younger brother Paul Muigai during the interview on February 13, 2011. Paul donated a kidney to his sister Photo/JENNIFER MUIRURI
The cord of love between two siblings is so strong that one put his life on the line to save the other.
Paul Muigai was willing to do anything for love; just like St Valentine put his life on the line by secretly performing marriages against the decree of Emperor Claudius II of Rome hundreds of years ago.
Mr Muigai, 31, took up the selfless task of saving his sister, Charity Nyakio, when he donated his kidney two years ago.
Nyakio and Paul have given the day a tag of new meaning; unconditional love. Today the pair joins the world in celebrating the day of love, Valentines’ Day.
“I love my sister and becoming a donor was the least I could do to express it,” Mr Muigai said in an interview on Sunday.
Ms Nyakio was diagnosed with high blood pressure 15 years ago and had managed the condition until four years ago when her kidneys started failing.
“I spent Sh12,000 weekly on dialysis for one and a half years and could no longer sustain it,” Ms Nyakio says.
After a battery of medical tests, she got two matching donors who could donate a kidney for her to resume a normal life. But one pulled out at the last minute.
“She feared the transplant surgery so my brother was the only willing donor who stood with me through the treacherous journey,” Ms Nyakio remembers.
After a successful surgery in India in 2009, the mother of two has resumed her business and is grateful to her brother for the “gift of life”.
On this day, a woman’s dream of a candlelight dinner, chocolates and romance may come to pass while for others the day is one of the occupational hazards of modern day dating.
Boyfriends and girlfriends
But according to this pair, Valentine’s is a day to show love not only to spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends but also to be shared among siblings, friends, school mates and even colleagues.
There is much to be grateful for every day, Ms Nyakio says. The special love between siblings was also evident last year when two sisters took part in a landmark operation.
In March 2010, Mary and Peninah Nginyo were among the first patients to undergo a kidney transplant using new technology known as laparoscopy.
Ms Mary Nginyo, 32, was diagnosed with kidney failure two years ago. It almost proved fatal when she became pregnant at the same time.
But her sister Peninah’s love proved far more powerful as the two women underwent the first surgery of its kind in Africa, performed by a team of Spanish and Kenyan doctors at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).
Their sharing signals a bold new direction for Kenyan patients with kidney failure. The first kidney transplant in the country was done at KNH in 1978, but it was not until 1988 that the procedure became available on a regular basis.
Pre-transplant analysis and the transplant cost about Sh520,000. Previously, the operation cost Sh800,000 at the public hospital, or Sh1.1 million in private health institutions.
The introduction of this relatively low-cost transplant technology could reduce the burden on Kenya’s scarce dialysis facilities, and help discourage medical travel to other countries where such procedures are more routine.
Laparoscopic surgery is a kind of keyhole surgery in which operations in the abdomen are performed through small incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm).
Also called minimally invasive surgery (MIS), the procedure uses images displayed on television monitors for magnification of the surgical elements.
The procedure has led to a decrease in pain and scarring and swifter recovery for the patients.
Ms Nyakio and her brother will today join other donors and recipients for an awareness walk at Impala Club from 9am to celebrate the gift of life.
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