Marios Halvantzis was born in Greece. When his mother Renata became pregnant, doctors predicted that the child might have kidney problems. And indeed, after the birth it turned out that his kidneys were 3 cm too small. The boy had to follow a diet. He underwent frequent examinations.
In 1995—after eight years in Greece—the Halvantzis family came to Poland. “Children who have kidney problems are short,” Mrs. Renata tells us Mrs. Renata. A doctor from Wrocław referred the boy to Warsaw for growth hormone treatment. There, Marios’s mother came across information about related-donor transplants.
Mr. Nikos, the boy’s father, and Mrs. Renata underwent a series of tests. “It turned out that I was the better donor,” says Renata Halvantzis. At the end of April, the 15-year-old was admitted to the Children’s Memorial Health Institute in Warsaw, while his mother went to the Infant Jesus Clinical Hospital. The transplant was successful. His mother’s kidney was accepted immediately. The boy began walking just two days after the operation.
“Marios could have left after two weeks, but he waited for me,” Mrs. Renata says with a smile. It turned out that the wound had become infected. Another operation was necessary. “I feel well now, but it was difficult. The second time I was terribly afraid,” the boy’s mother admits. “But I do not regret it at all. If I had to do it again, I would go without hesitation,” she adds.
“Before, I felt weak and sluggish; I didn’t feel like doing anything,” Marios Halvantzis told the IstotneInformacje.pl website. — “Now I am full of energy.” The boy plays football and rides a bicycle. In the past, he dreamed of becoming a footballer. Today, he is afraid that someone might hit him in the wound. He is thinking about becoming a hairstylist. It is his mother’s unfulfilled dream. “It passed on to him,” Mrs. Renata laughs.
Marios was fortunate that one of his parents was able to help him. Many people are condemned to painful dialysis treatment, while patients for whom a transplant is the only chance of recovery often have to wait a long time for a donor. In Mrs. Renata’s opinion, too little is still said about transplants in Poland. “I want people to agree to donate their organs—even after death,” explains Renata Halvantzis.
(GA information)