Wakefield man woken twice at 1am by police and ambulance and rushed to hospital over kidney disease

In 2016, Liam Howorth a Property Sourcing Manager in Wakefield, knew that something was wrong with his health, but had no idea that he was going though kidney failure. As his symptoms worsened, he visited his GP almost weekly, but his doctors were unable to join the dots until he was offered a blood test.

At 1am, the night of the test, Liam suddenly woke find an ambulance outside his home. With it was an out-of-hours doctor who told the then 32-year-old that he was in renal failure and needed to go to the hospital immediately.

Feeling bewildered, Liam made his way to A&E where further tests took place. He was shocked to find out that he had just 4% kidney function and would need to start dialysis immediately.

Liam recalled: “I can remember vividly the doctor on call reeling off a number of symptoms. I had no knowledge of kidney disease before I crash landed in A&E that night. I really did think that they’d give me some medication and I’d be on my way, but that wasn’t the case at all.”

Biopsy results found that Liam’s kidneys had been scarred, the most likely cause was from medication he took for an existing condition, ulcerative colitis.

It was this night that Liam started his gruelling treatment of dialysis which left him “overwhelmed”. Needing to make an urgent decision about life-saving treatment, he decided to opt for in-hospital dialysis while he waited for an all-important transplant.

A year on, Liam was on holiday in North Yorkshire, when again he was woken up at 1am, this time by a policeman banging at his door. Having forgotten to tell the transplant centre that he was going on holiday and not having phone signal, the hospital had sent the police to track him down.

Liam continued: “I thought I was dreaming again; I opened the door to see the police standing in the doorway and the first thought was obviously ‘what have I done!’ They explained that a kidney had become available, and they needed me to get to the hospital as soon as possible. I even used their radio to communicate with the transplant team and confirm that I was coming, albeit still in my pyjamas.”

The transplant went ahead and Liam was free from dialysis. Sadly, the new organ didn’t flourish, never functioning much above 20% and lasted just five years. This was unlucky, as donor kidneys usually last 20 years, on average.

Liam is currently recovering from a second kidney transplant he had over Christmas. Reaching around 60% function, the new organ will allow him to live life to the full again and he hopes it will last longer than the first.

Kidney Research UK estimate that of the 3.5 million people currently living with kidney disease around one million are unaware that they even have the condition. The organisation is encouraging people to find out if they are at risk of kidney disease via the charity’s free online health check.