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Alice gets her kidney
BRAVE Alice Skinner's four-year wait for a kidney finally ended last night after she underwent a five-hour transplant operation.
The seven-year-old is today recovering in the intensive care unit at Newcastle's RVI hospital after undergoing the life-saving op.
Her family are hoping the transplant has been a success. Their agonising wait finally came to an end yesterday morning when Alice's dad, George, received the phone call the family had longed for and there was a kidney for her. George, 39, told the Mail: "I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what to say or think. It was hard to believe it was happening.
"It was one of those conversations where it just doesn't seem real."
George and Alice's mum Nicola Andrews, 37, then dashed to get Alice from school.
He said: "Normally, it would just be me picking her up to take her for her dialysis but Nicola was in the car and we were around an hour early so she knew something was different.
"She took it all in her stride when we told her. I said 'they've got a kidney for you darling' and she said 'oh right'.
"She had been expecting it for so long. She was more excited that she got to drink a can of coke on the way to the hospital as we had to keep her fluids up."
Once at the RVI unit Alice received her three hours of dialysis while checks were carried out on the adult transplant kidney.
At 4.30pm George and Nicola, who had been joined by Alice's older sister Lucy Andrews, 19, were told the operation was going ahead.
At the family home in Templeton Close, Hartlepool, George said: "We were just so apprehensive. She was taken to surgery at 8pm and she was kicking and screaming. We were all in tears and we stayed with her until they gave her the medicine.
"They were the longest five hours of our life. It was a horrible nerve racking time."
Surgeons worked for five hours to transplant the adult kidney and the family finally got to see the battling youngster just after 1am today.
George said: "She looked a lot better than we expected and she was cracking jokes as soon as she was awake and was still telling them at 4am this morning.
"When she woke up she said 'I have not had my kidney yet' we said you have Alice and she didn't believe it."
The family, who remained at the hospital all night and this morning with Alice, now face an agonising wait to see if the operation has been a success.
George, who works as a salesman, said: "At first the kidney was not producing urine but it has started to.
"We won't know for a couple of days whether it is functioning properly."
Alice will remain in intensive care until after the weekend and is expected to be in hospital for several weeks.
George said: "It will be an anxious time and we are still very apprehensive.
"We are all a little drained at the moment and it will be a long couple of days."
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Weather for Hartlepool
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light sleet
Temperature: 0 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 2 C
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