Best friend donates kidney to save Janet

When Janet Burgess was diagnosed with kidney failure for the second time she feared her life was over - until best friend Kerry Griffiths donated one of her kidneys to save her.

The odds of Janet and Kerry being a match were a million to one but with Janet six months from death, Kerry had tests to find if a transplant was possible. Janet, of Halesowen, realised how much her friend was willing to risk to help her but Kerry refused to give up and eventually the operation went ahead at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Now Janet, aged 35, has a new lease of life and Kerry, 37, has adjusted to having one kidney. Janet said: "If I could give Kerry the earth, the moon and the stars it wouldn't repay her for what she has done for me. She put her life on the line. Going through any operation is a risk. She has given me my life back."

Diagnosed with a rare kidney condition at the age of nine, Janet, of Hedgefield Grove, was told both her kidneys had failed when she was 25 but an anonymous donor gave her a healthy organ. Eight years later the kidney was no longer working properly and she was told another donor would have to be found. Janet says that when she told Kerry, of Highfield Crescent, Colley Gate, she said: "Why can't I give you one of my kidneys?".

Janet told her friend she could not accept but Kerry insisted and had dozens of tests to check if they were a match. In October 2006, a letter confirmed they were compatible.

Janet said: "I was over the moon but I was upset as well of what she would have to go through. It was a one in a million chance that she could be a match not being related to me."

They had surgery in August 2007, two months after Kerry married, and both have recovered. Janet's thoughts have now turned to son Nicholas, 16, who will soon have his first session of dialysis as he starts his own battle for health. Janet's son Nicholas suffers from the same degenerative condition which gradually erodes kidney function until sufferers need a transplant of a healthy organ to survive.

"Now I can be there for my son," she said.