There’s a fire in Di’s eyes that tells you she’s not here to be pitied. She’s here to live. Big. Loud. And with purpose.
She’s the kind of woman who straps a dialysis machine into a caravan and heads bush. The kind who once swam every week, danced when she could, and still fought like hell to keep smiling, even when her lungs filled with fluid and her body, from the inside out, was giving up on her.
Di was just a toddler when blood showed up in her potty. A rare genetic condition, Alport syndrome, was quietly working its way through her kidneys, her eyes, her ears. She made it through childhood, through school, through adolescence, stronger than most. But by 26 she was on dialysis. By 29, she was living with her first donated kidney, a miracle match that saw her through the next 20 years.
Then came the second transplant. A six-way kidney swap, three donors, three recipients, in three different cities. Her sister gave hers to a stranger. A stranger’s loved one gave one to Di. That’s how the gift of life travels in waves.
Ask her what she'd say to the family of her first donor, and she pauses. “Thank you,” she says eventually, then adds: “But that’s never enough. That’s two words for a coffee. Not for a life.”
Now, at home with her old boy and the dog, Di walks, laughs, sometimes cries, and always lives. “I’ve fought for health, fought for life, fought for smiling,” she says.
This Donate Life Week, Di wants people to do one thing: talk. “Why take your organs to heaven when heaven knows we need them here?” she says, with a grin and a glint that tells you she means it.
And just like that, the world seems a little brighter. David Barrett
Register today as an organ and tissue donor. It only takes one minute at donatelife.gov.au or through your Medicare account.
