Quote

It was in 2003 that I realised there was no choice but to have dialysis treatment - by the time of the World Cup that year, I could barely walk. A year later, I finally had a kidney transplant.

I had worked on dogs for a couple of years developing a renal transplant operation. We had dogs running around with kidneys we had transplanted back into themselves.

Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient's renal and cardiopulmonary status. This spectacular success was a clear demonstration that organ transplantation could be life-saving.

Organ donation is very personal to me. My mother, before her death, was on kidney dialysis for several years.

Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient's renal and cardiopulmonary status.

I was on dialysis for 18 months before the transplant, so it was important I tried to look ahead to days like my comeback this Saturday. You need those big goals to drive you on.

I had to have a complete liver transplant.

I moved to Harvard in 1998, and in 2000 the first kidney exchange in the United States was done at a hospital nearby. I started to think, 'Gee, there might be a way where I could help organize it, make it easier for people to find kidneys.'

It wasn't the 'miracle of engineering' that is the human body that was filling me with a mad desire to live my days and nights in a pair of scrubs. The hard truth was I did not remotely want to be a surgeon. I actually just wanted to be on 'Grey's Anatomy.'

I was a healthy young man, and I thought I was invincible before I was diagnosed with kidney disease.