Paul Bryan has battled kidney disease, lymphoma and heart attacks, but against the odds the cadaver kidney he received 34 years ago is still going strong
Annette and Paul Bryan. Photo: Gerry Mooney
The first time Paul Bryan (70) realised he had an issue with one of his kidneys was in 1981. The then 25-year-old sheet metal worker from Walkinstown, Dublin, was a promising football player with Crumlin GAA Club, and was playing a championship match when he fell and injured his back.
“He had to be carried off the pitch, writhing in pain and brought to Jervis Street Hospital by ambulance,” recalls his wife Annette, a now-retired account supervisor in a multinational company. “At first, the doctors thought he had a muscular or spinal injury and he was treated with physiotherapy, but one of them spotted something on his chart, and thought it might be a problem with his kidney.”