Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): On the eve of Raksha Bandhan festival, Free Press talked to three sisters who saved their brothers’ lives by donating kidneys to them.
Excerpts:
She quit job
Prachi Mahehswari, 26, has donated one of her kidneys to her 20-year-old brother Ankur. The kidney transplant was done in March this year and now both are doing well. Prachi who lives in Bhopal says that her brother had a kidney-related problem since birth and the doctors had told them that someday he will need a transplant. “In September 2020, doctors told us that the time had come. My parents, my elder sister and I went through tests, which revealed that only I can donate my kidney to him,” she said.
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At the time, Prachi was working as an accountant with CA firm. “I resigned from my job as I would have required a long leave and the employers wouldn’t allow me to,” she said. Prachi said they knew all the time that someday one of the family members would have to donate his or her kidney to Ankur. But when the process began, they realised how long and complicated it is. “There were so many tests, so many visits to hospitals, so many medicines and so many precautions,” she recalled. However, she is now happy. “My brother has resumed his studies. He is doing his PG and I have started my own business,” Prachi told Free Press.
Everyone is happy
After her 32-year-old brother Jitendra Sahu was found suffering from LgA nephropathy and the doctors declared that kidney transplantation was the only way out, his sister Sushma came to his rescue. “We are four sisters and two brothers. I am the eldest. My children had grown up but my sister’s children were young. So, I decided to donate my kidney. Now, I am happy, my brother is happy, everyone is happy,” said Shushma who lives in Kurwai in Vidisha district.
Jitendra is a guest teacher at a government school in Sironj in Vidisha district. “I had to undergo dialysis for four months,” Jitendra said. The transplantation was done in February 2022. “Earlier, I had to visit hospital for a routine checkup once every month. Now, I go there once every three months,” he said.
Hubby had no objection
In 2016, Atul Saxena, 47, discovered that he had only one kidney since birth. Saxena, the marketing head of a private company, is the only brother of his three sisters. Unfortunately, his sole kidney got infected and gradually stopped functioning. He was admitted to a hospital in Bhopal in July 2021 and survived on dialysis for 10 months.
Then, in March 2022, his sister Mamata’s kidney was transplanted into his body. Mamata, 44, who is married and lives in Indore, told Free Press that her husband and children readily agreed to her donating her kidney to her brother.
