But I kept saying to him and the doctors, I'm like,
okay, I've had two children, one that route,
one the alternative route.
It can't be that route.
It's been down both streets.
I've said that to the surgeon on our first meeting.
He was explaining the surgery and pain care.
And I said, okay, just tell me one thing.
On a scale of one to C-section, what are we talking here?
Yeah.
I'm interested, what'd he give you?
Hey, hey, and welcome to the 40s Formula.
Your go-to place for insightful discussions
on navigating the 40s and thriving
in this transformative decade.
We're your hosts, Jasmine and Amanda.
Two women that are passionate about exploring
the challenges and adventures that come with turning 40
and what lies ahead.
Claire Chahill is a 44-year-old mom of two girls
aged 16 and 10 and the founder of the AC Boutique
in Jucheat.
She's lived in Singapore for 12 years now,
but grew up in Southwest London with three sisters
and a single mom.
Claire has always been fascinated by fashion and retail
and worked as a buyer at the House of Fraser
before she moved to Singapore to set up
her own independent boutique.
She loves gin, dancing, and good food.
She would describe herself as a fighter
despite having many bouts of depression.
Claire, when I first heard your story,
I got goosebumps and I started welling up
and I really can't imagine what you
and your family went through.
So could you just take us back to the beginning
and tell us how this all started
and share with us how you discovered
that something was very strong?
Okay, so at the time,
so I'll create a bit of a picture
of what was happening at the time.
So we were like in the midst of COVID.
So we were out of lockdowns,
but still lots of restrictions going on.
But for what I do in my world, which is retail,
it was quite a bit of a boom time.
So I was running around, running three locations.
So we had Jucheat Road, Raffles Hotel, Arcade,
and a pop-up in Tangjong Pagar.
And I was running around like crazy.
At home, I've got obviously my husband, two kids,
and my father-in-law was living with us
at the time as well.
And I was really just in and out of the house,
super manic, focusing on the business.
And a few days in a row, I came home and I was like,
what's going on with you?
To my husband, I was like, you look a bit off,
like you look a bit weird, something's not right here.
And then one day when I came home from work,
I was very late and he had already was like in bed.
And I looked at his face and it was like
completely swollen on one side.
And we worked out that I was like starting to look at it.
And we worked out that he had like a bit of hardness
on his lip.
And we thought, oh my God, you've been bitten by something.
You've been bitten by an insect,
maybe this is an allergic reaction.
So he went to the GP, they prescribed him,
they were like kind of agreed with that
and they prescribed him medication for it.
The next, he started taking the medication
and within 24 hours, he was getting worse,
like rapidly worse, not better.
And it was a Sunday morning.
He'd had a very rough night's sleep,
coughing a lot and not comfortable.
He came downstairs in the morning
and he couldn't really walk.
He couldn't really coordinate his movements or anything.
And I was like, I think we need to go to the hospital.
This looks very serious.
And my eldest daughter was like, yes, mum,
for the last few days, it's been getting really worse.
I'm really worried.
I said, okay, you know what?
Go upstairs, pack him an overnight bag
because he'll probably be admitted.
I think he's having an allergic reaction
to either the sting or the medication for the sting.
Let's get him to A&E.
So we went in a taxi, our neighbor's a taxi driver,
so she took us in.
So we went in a taxi and he was like,
he couldn't even sit up.
I was like propping him up in the taxi.
And I arrived and I said straight away,
okay, I think we've got an allergic reaction going on here.
My husband needs to be admitted straight away.
They whisked him straight through.
And let me tell you, that is always a bad sign.
You would rather be sitting in the waiting room
because you're generally okay
if you're sitting in the waiting room.
But he was whisked straight through.
I obviously do the paperwork
and then I'm sitting in the waiting room
and within like, it was quick.
It was like half hour, 40 minutes.
Doctor came through, called my name,
took me to the side and said, we know what's wrong.
He has end stage kidney failure.
Oh my God.
And I went.
And it was like in a movie where like,
like you feel like you're, like the floor's gone away
and you're dropping down and are almost fainted.
He had to sort of pick me up a bit.
And I was like, ah, okay, okay.
And then he went, would you like to see him?
And I said, absolutely.
And he said, we don't usually bring,
especially in COVID, we don't usually bring family members
into this room where all the very serious patients are.
And I was like, God, okay, again, a bad sign.
So in I went and he was hooked up to everything.
Like tubes in here, you know, wires going in,
everything, everything.
And he was still completely out of it.
And then that just began in the whole journey
of like learning about kidney failure,
what it is, what we need to do, how we're gonna tackle it,
how we're gonna live with it.
And yeah, getting very used to hospitals basically.
I mean, you sort of mentioned that the sort of initial
reaction for you was like this, like the ground opened up.
How did you deal with your sort of emotions
during this time?
I mean, they were up and down, like very severe.
I mean, I think that I now know looking back,
I spent sort of two years in a state of like heightened stress.
And it's not the first major trauma I've had in my life.
So I think that kind of helped in a way
because I sort of said to myself,
you've been through these awful traumas
and you've got through them.
You know, you should be able to get through this as well.
And there were some practical things I did.
Like I had a fantastic personal trainer
who I've known for like 10 years.
He used to teach my kids swimming and he's wonderful.
And I know from having bouts of depression in the past
that exercise is very key for me
to sort of keep on top of things.
And so I had him once a week
and then on the lead up to the big surgery twice a week
because that was to try and have the best possible recovery,
quickest possible recovery from the surgery.
And then really some days I was fine and coping.
Other days I was an absolute mess and snapping at people
and just drinking too much gin.
I'm trying, very honestly.
No one's blaming you here.
And just trying to keep it all together.
Yeah, I've got 85, 86 year olds,
with his own health problems living with me,
father-in-law.
I've got my two kids,
my youngest kid was really struggling
at school as well at the time.
And my husband spent more time in hospital
and then the dialysis clinics
for those two years than at home.
It was hard.
Yeah, I mean, I don't even know
what you would have gone through during that period.
Like it just sounds too much.
And how old were your kids at the time
and how did you break the news to them?
So not great at going back in time with us.
Where are we now?
So they're 17 and 10 now.
So they were six and see, I really can't do them.
I'm 14.
Wow, yeah.
Could they understand?
So I remember coming home that night.
So by the time I got home,
so obviously I was sending the messages
and it was a Sunday, so my helper wasn't there.
So the kids were home.
And obviously at that time,
I would leave my eldest at home on her own,
but I'd never left her with my youngest at that time.
But obviously the priority was
to get my husband to hospital.
I couldn't wait for anyone to come in and be a relief.
And my helper did come home.
So she came home within an hour.
And I was at the hospital,
getting him settled, getting him in the room,
talking to doctors until very late, like 10, 11 p.m.
And by the time I came home,
the house was completely quiet.
Everyone had gone to bed
and I just sat in the living room in the dark
and I was like, oh, you're gonna have to tell everyone
tomorrow, you're gonna have to like,
you're just gonna have to cope with this
because you're the only one that can.
It's up to you now.
I can't imagine having to be the pillar of strength
in front of your girls
when you just found out the news yourself, right?
I mean, it's like there wasn't too much time in between.
Well, one thing we decided really early on,
and as a parent, you procrastinate and you research
and you make your decision
on what you're gonna do with your children
and then you stick with it
and you hope you've made the right decision.
I felt very strongly
that they should be made aware of everything.
And maybe the language changes slightly
for the different age group.
But I really strongly felt from the beginning
that they know something serious is happening
and they shouldn't be lied to about it.
We shouldn't withhold any information from them.
They need to know what is going on
because who knows what crisis they might face in their lives.
So it's kind of learning
and it's the reality of what we're going through.
And I wanted them to somehow feel
that we're in it together, you know, they're a part of it
and it's important that they felt
that they were informed about everything.
Hey Amanda, do you know of a really easy way
to give your kids some good gut bacteria?
I do indeed.
I'm giving my family Akizzi Wellness Elderberry Boost.
They come in these little sachets.
You just rip them open, pour it right in your mouth.
That sounds like fun.
And I bet I could add that to their smoothies
and some Greek yogurt too.
And what I love about Akizzi
is that you can take it any time of day
and there's a product for all ages,
even my 12 week old little guy.
Akizzi believe that food is medicine
so you know the products are clean
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They also take a science forward approach
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And the best thing is you can get 15% off full price items
with free delivery when you use code 40s at checkout
for any purchases in Singapore
from their website akizziwellness.com.
And don't forget to check out their new Akizzi Berry
and Akizzi Tropical Flavors too.
Now back to the chat.
What options did the doctors then give you
as to how to sort of move forward
with your husband's condition?
So the whole kidney thing works very differently
in different countries.
Initially the treatment is at his stage,
so there's five stages, one to five for kidney failure.
One through three can be controlled with medication.
It's always progressive, but one through three medication,
three and a half, you start maybe having a bit of dialysis.
Four and five, by the time you hit stage five,
it's full blown dialysis, right?
I think that if we had waited 24, 48 hours more,
he would have been dead because when he went in,
his lungs were 80% water, 80% fluid
because the kidney gets rid of the fluid in the body
and his blood was absolutely toxic because again,
that's the other job of the kidney.
So he had to have dialysis straight away,
but it's actually, administering that is quite complex.
Initially it goes straight into the kidney,
but you have to be in hospital for that.
So then they fit catheters.
So the initial catheters go straight into your heart
because the dialysis machine is very powerful.
So you have to have a major artery in vain to cope with it.
And so that happened first,
but then there's risk of infection.
So we went through this period of like six months
where he was having outpatient dialysis,
but then the catheter would get infected
and then he'd have to go into hospital,
have another surgery, take that one out, put a new one in.
And then meanwhile, they create the permanent location
for dialysis is actually on your forearm,
the inside of your forearm
and they create what they call an AV fistula.
So they pull down the major artery in vain,
but it takes about three months to grow, they say,
to be able to cope with the dialysis machine.
So in that time, you have to cope with the more
high risk of infection situation.
And that can be very complex and very difficult.
So then you're on dialysis.
Some people stay on dialysis, but he is very young.
Like he just turned 50, that for stage five is very young
and to be on dialysis, very young.
So usually, like when I would go and see him
in the dialysis clinic,
he's by far the youngest in the room usually,
because it's very taxing on the body.
It ruins your heart, it ruins your lungs.
Like it's such a heavy pumping machine.
So then, I would say for the first few months,
we were just in a daze.
It was just survival mode.
And then there was one pivotal day where,
so we're all still kind of in lockdown,
because I remembered it wasn't full lockdown,
but we were all still in our homes.
I think it's when the regulations were,
you could only meet with four or five people
outside your home or something.
Yeah, that number changed so rapidly here, right?
Exactly, exactly.
Because I remember this evening actually,
so he was in the hospital down the road for me,
from where we live with another infection.
Oh, it's quite good to live walking distance
from a hospital, by the way,
if you are going through a big medical crisis.
So he was in the hospital down the road,
and we had an online quiz night
booked with a big group of friends,
and that's how we sort of socialized during the COVID.
And I went down there with like a special dinner
and some nice drinks to do the quiz together.
So we were together in the hospital doing the quiz together,
and then I went to my friend's house afterwards.
And I remember her, I like burst into tears
as soon as I arrived, I was like,
I don't know what we are going to do.
And she said to me, Claire, you and Whiskey,
that's his nickname, you are not being your normal selves.
You need to, she was like, hard reality talk.
She was like, you can cope with this.
You will cope with this.
There is a solution, which is transplant.
And I was like, I know, but he doesn't want to do that.
He doesn't want to go down that route
because it's taking someone's organ.
And she said, she actually had a friend
who had just had that surgery in Australia,
and she talked me through it a bit.
And I said, you know what, you're right.
We need to, we're not operating how we normally operate.
We're problem solvers as people.
And I was like, okay, I'm going to have a good cry tonight,
wake up in the morning, start the plan.
And so from what I understand,
you need to be a match in order to have a transplant.
Is that correct?
So that the body doesn't reject?
Yes. Okay.
Yes.
So what happened then is we said to his kidney specialist,
his nephrologist that he was under at the time,
we would like to look at the options of a transplant.
And that nephrologist said, I don't deal with transplants.
And I was like, oh, okay, he does.
So then we transferred to another doctor and he said,
okay, transplants are only done in one place in Singapore.
So it's National University Hospital.
It's the Newcott Center.
They deal with kidney and liver transplants.
So the first thing you need to do is go
and have an appointment with them.
So initially we were looking for a cadaverous transplant.
Sorry, what's a cadaverous?
Cadaverous meaning a cadaver, like a dead body.
So it's somebody who unfortunately has met
with a bad accident or, and has died,
but they themselves have opted for organ donation
or their family has decided they're happy for that to happen.
And you basically go on a waiting list and you're on call.
And when those organs become available
through the sad circumstances,
but you go in and you have your transplant.
The waiting list in Singapore is by far
the largest in the world.
It is 10 years.
Oh my God, wow.
10 years.
To put that into perspective,
the quickest in the world is Spain, which is eight months.
Wow.
Because it's knocked out donor system.
I think, I think, I think I remember that correctly,
but you can fact check that.
So it's very long.
And so immediately we were like, that's not an option.
Because actually by then he might not be
a very good candidate for it because the dial,
he wouldn't be in great shape to do the surgery.
So then it was the discussion about,
you know, some like a live donor.
And actually three of our friends,
including the friend who was giving me
the hard talk that evening,
three of our friends said,
we've all been talking about this.
We are ready.
We're ready to volunteer.
So then we have another,
so it's a different,
like different team that deal with live transplants at NUH.
So then we have another appointment with them
and they say, well, you know, who is around,
who can volunteer to be tested?
Usually it's a parent or a sibling.
And we were like, well, that's not an option for us.
We have some friends.
And I said, we've never had a friend donate to a friend.
I'm not sure that would pass ethics committee.
Okay.
Well, I'm wanting to do it as well.
And they were like, okay, we'll start with you.
In fact, we went into the meeting saying,
right, I've got eight names.
Let's coordinate a date.
Let's get everyone in the room
because I'm treating it like a business situation.
Let's make this happen.
And as quick as possible.
And they were like, that is not how it works.
We go candidate, like volunteer by volunteer.
And it's very convoluted and it's very in depth
and it's case by case basis.
So therein started, yeah, the testing phase.
Yeah.
Can you sort of walk us through what that entails?
So what happened was I'm assigned.
So the donor is assigned their own specialist, doctor,
within that unit.
And then the recipient is assigned their own as well.
And the doctors,
even though they're part of the same unit in the hospital,
they work separately to work out the best case scenario
for their patient.
And so obviously initial questions,
what is your state of health?
So the usual tests around blood tests,
obviously urine tests,
just checking, not a mammogram,
but a bit of poking around up here.
And you know, investigative work.
Investigative work.
And then they look at those results
and then you go to the next stage.
So it's like, okay, we do the top line stuff first.
Then we look at the results and then we go a bit deeper
and then we look at those results
and then we say, what needs to be done now?
So it goes in like stages, stages, stages like that.
How long is that whole process?
So I've got, so I started testing in July, 2021,
and then the operation was 16th of March, 2022.
It feels like it was longer, but we really pushed them.
That sounds quite long already.
I mean, that's almost a year.
Oh, we really pushed them.
So shy.
We really did.
And I had every, every med,
the only thing I didn't have is an MRI.
I had everything else done you could possibly imagine.
And they did, and it did throw up some things,
little kidney stone in one of the kidneys,
thyroid problem that I never knew I had,
that I've probably had for many years.
Yeah, little things you can cope with though, luckily.
And the matching is really interesting
because their initial reaction was a bit like,
well, usually female to male,
the organ's not usually big enough.
You are totally different ethnicity.
Like I'm Caucasian kind of mix of Irish
and other Caucasian European.
He's Punjabi, Indian.
So they were like, well,
I feel like almost so humoring me in the beginning.
I was like, right, let's get this done.
I'm gonna do it.
And they went, well, we'll just have to see if the match.
And then actually they didn't tell us
until after the surgery
that we are the closest match possible.
Wow. Yeah.
And it's strange.
It was meant to be, wasn't it?
Yeah. Yeah.
It's strange.
Each round of tests, right?
I feel like it's a hurdle that you had to clear, right?
So, okay, blood work is clear.
Now next, urine.
Okay, now next.
Was it becoming increasingly clear to you though,
that you would be the donor?
I mean, every time you pass one of those hurdles,
were you like, this is happening?
Yes and no, because the tests always throw up something.
So then you have another discussion
and then all along the way,
they are really watching you, right?
They are assessing you.
They're assessing your body.
Very aware.
They were assessing my mental state, my body language.
Are you changing your mind?
And actually, when I, they didn't actually do a scan.
The CT scan was the one that actually shows
the state of your organs and that you have two.
Because I kept saying, can we just do that first?
Because I might've been born with one and not know.
Because that does happen.
And they're like, no, we don't do that too much later on.
And I had a funny discussion.
I had a moment of realization.
And I said to my doctor in one meeting,
do you not do the more serious and more painful tests
until later on because people kind of drop out?
And he said, yeah, of course.
It gets more and more serious.
And they're kind of testing how serious you are.
And are you actually okay to do this?
And are you going to do it or not?
But all along the way, I mean, it really was like,
I'm going to seal the deal, this is going to happen.
So for you, you were obviously very adamant.
You knew that you wanted to go through
with what was happening.
When you first mentioned to your husband
that you could be a potential donor,
what was his mindset?
What were his thoughts behind that?
No, straight away.
I had to persuade him.
It was no straight away.
And I think that at the beginning,
it's not the first major health crisis he's had.
He almost died when he was in his 20s.
He was in a coma for six months with meningitis.
And then he developed septicemia
and he had amputations and things.
So he went through that journey in his 20s.
And he said, I've done it before.
I can do it again.
I can cope with this.
And I just said, I don't want that for my life,
your life, our kids' lives.
And yeah, I really persuaded him
because of course he doesn't want me
or anyone else in his family to be hurt or come to harm.
But I kept saying to him and the doctors,
I'm like, okay, I've had two children.
One that root, one the alternative root.
It can't be that, that.
They're down both streets.
I've said that to the surgeon on our first meeting.
He was explaining the surgery and pain care.
And I said, okay, just tell me one thing.
On a scale of one to C-section, what are we talking here?
Yeah.
I'm interested, what'd he give you?
What'd he give you?
He said, oh, he said, he did give me a number actually.
He said, oh, okay, fine.
You've done, okay, yeah, you'll be fine.
But the pain care after is different
because your epidural gives you a nice slow afterburn,
easing off, whereas the medication
that they give in this surgery is a hard stop after surgery.
So you're in a morphine drip.
Oh wow.
Yeah, what would you say was the hardest or the scariest
part of the whole journey for you?
The scariest part was one time when he got MRSA infection
in one of his catheters.
Oh my God.
So quite in the beginning.
I would say that was six months into it.
And he was in the hospital and they all know,
like Parkway East Hospital, love them.
Everyone knows me, all the receptionists.
Shout out to Parkway.
Exactly, walking distance from my house,
you know, like, walk down, check on my husband.
You know, he was in there so often.
The last infection he got in the second catheter
was MRSA and that is scary.
That is very, very difficult to get rid of.
The specialist doctor said it, kept saying,
it's very sticky.
If it gets into the bones, we're in real trouble.
We don't think it's in the bones yet.
And I thought, you know what it's like in life.
You're focusing on one thing and then something else
comes around and knocks it all out.
And that's the thing that really, you know,
makes it all end.
And I went in one evening and it was a Sunday.
So Sunday's a very slow day in hospitals around the world.
You know, obviously the staff is still there,
but the major staff aren't there.
And so I went in and he had been in for about a week
and he didn't, I took one look at him and I thought,
he does not look like he's improving.
I'm really, really worried now.
And I went to the nurses station and I just broke down
and I was like, are we okay?
Where are we on the treatment plan?
They were amazing.
They took me, you know, got me tissues, got me water,
took me into their office, called the major specialist
on a Sunday evening.
He's pulled away from the dinner table,
has the conversation with me.
And you know, they were really amazing.
But that was really the scariest moment.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised.
No.
And obviously this all sort of happened during COVID.
So things were harder to get through.
Did you, how did you find the support you needed
during this time?
I mean, one thing I would say is that dealing with like
the information is actually quite a huge burden
because like I'm doing work,
I carried on with the businesses, right?
So I'm doing all the business and two kids
and then, you know, father-in-law and then the information.
So every time I go to the hospital,
I'm given all the information
because the children were never ever allowed
to go to the hospital.
Even when he, so a lot of the time he was in intensive care,
but even when he wasn't and he was on a normal ward
throughout the entire time because of COVID rules,
they were never allowed in.
It was only ever me that was allowed to visit.
And so I would get all this information
and then I would, you know, need to go home,
tell the family, but also friends.
And they're trying to support.
But actually one thing I learned is find a person
who'll be like your information.
I don't know, I've lost the words.
Like liaison.
Exactly, exactly.
Who will keep everyone informed
because once you've done all that and all the paperwork,
you know, you just like,
you get the repetition is like exhausting.
So with the family, I would be like,
including the help, I'd be like, right,
everyone needs to do these little committee reasons.
Everyone sit down in the living room.
I'm gonna give you all the information all in one go.
Yeah, that's a really great tip though.
I mean, I even feel that way with happy news, right?
Like when you have a baby and everybody's bombarding you,
you know, tell me, tell me the story, tell me about it.
And it's like, you just wanna tell it once.
Exactly.
With painful news, amplify that.
Yes, exactly, yeah.
I have a question.
I can't help but think about that kind of those few days
lead up time when you noticed your husband
having the swollen face and the hard lip.
Are there signs to the earlier stages of kidney?
Oh, there are so many signs.
Okay.
And they are so obvious.
Okay, tell us girl.
This is really a lesson in please take care of yourselves.
If there is something wrong with you,
don't assume it's what you've, you know, people.
Beasting.
Yeah, or don't assume it's like your lifestyle choices.
So you're not exercising, you're not drinking too much beer.
You know, for years we look back and we're like,
oh my God, all the signs were there.
Swollen ankles is the number one thing.
Okay.
If you've got puffy swollen ankles,
go and get your kidney tested immediately.
His sinuses, so like fluid on the lungs.
We thought he was having sinuses.
So he went to ENT.
He was actually scheduled to have nose surgery in the January.
He went into hospital in December, 2020.
He was actually going to have a surgery on his nose
in the January because that was what they thought it was.
It wasn't at all, nothing wrong with his sinuses.
It was just his lungs were filling with fluid.
There are so many signs and actually it is a bit scary
that we didn't, well, it was wrong of us really
to not go to doctors and not seek.
And when you go to a doctor, go for a second opinion.
If those symptoms don't step aside, right?
If they still are there and don't assume it's
like the food fad things.
I mean, you're both nutritionists
and it's like everyone thinks they've got allergies
and this, that and the other.
And maybe they do, but actually please get,
have a basic blood test done.
Have your urine tested.
Like just make sure all those organs are functioning.
Something we say here and we said it in season one.
We'll say it again here is know your numbers.
Have baselines for every important marker in your body
at least annually, if not every six months
if you've had preexisting problems before.
100% and that's it.
And it's, I think it's a generational change as well
between I hope I'm not ill.
I hope I'm not ill in the back of my mind.
I hope I'm not ill, hope I'm not ill.
Oh, I really feel at breaking point now.
I'm gonna go to the doctor or end up in A&E.
It's turning that into actually, well,
it's a more conversational situation with your doctors.
And yes, it takes time and consistency and a bit of money
but you know, you actually do need to do that.
And you're right, the stats, like I had no idea
before I did all of this,
the amount of blood tests you have to do,
like they really need to track it and know it.
And it's tracking stats.
Yeah, and again, we're here on the 40s formula, right?
So meaning we're talking about healthy aging.
You might not have needed it in your 20s, I get that.
But here in your 40s and 50s, you sure do.
Exactly, exactly, yeah.
So on your Instagram, there's a picture of a butterfly
while you're on staycation.
What was the significance of that?
Oh, okay, so shortly before the surgery,
and actually it's really tricky
because the last thing you do after all the testing
and then they have internal meetings
and the doctors have to ratify their decisions.
It has to be checked and double checked.
And all the while I'm thinking, okay,
people have plastic surgery all the time without any of this.
But anyway, let's do all these meetings.
So do all of that.
And then the surgery date is kind of penciled in.
So the teams can organize,
there's a massive, massive surgical team and recovery team.
So it's penciled in for the 16th of March, 2022,
but the ethics committee have the last sign off
and they don't meet until a week before.
And I have to say that is so stressful.
And I understand why they do it very close to the date
because people do change their minds, things change.
But that for me, I was so worried
that I wouldn't pass the ethics committee.
I don't know why, but your doctor can't coach you,
can't help you.
It's like giving evidence in the court of law.
You really have to go in there
and you don't know what they're gonna ask you
and you don't know who's gonna be on the committee
and everything.
And I understand why, but that for me was very stressful.
But so back to the butterfly, we love Capella Hotel.
That's where we normally go for our staycations.
And we were like, okay,
I feel like we're about to do this major surgery,
hopefully if we get passed by ethics committee.
Let's just pamper ourselves a little bit before.
Let's have a bit of time, just you and me.
So we went to stay with Capella for a couple of nights.
And we were sitting lounging by the pool
and a butterfly came by and landed on my husband's body,
sort of like the lower stomach area
and just stayed there for a while.
And I was like, oh, and took a picture of it.
And it turns out that that is the spot
where my kidney is there now.
It's incredible. That is weird, right?
Getting goosebumps.
It's beautifully weird though, isn't it?
It's beautifully weird.
And I still am not spiritual.
After all that, I still don't believe it.
Yeah.
You're like, maybe that butterfly just, you know,
is stopping by.
I don't know, but that's where it is.
And I didn't know,
because obviously your kidneys are on your back.
But they don't remove the disease kidneys.
They just reroute the lines
and they put the new one in the front.
I did not know that.
Wow. Did you know that?
They did not know that either.
I thought it was a bait and switch situation.
No, because it's that, as always with surgery,
the least trauma possible is the best route to success,
basically.
So it goes in the front and we call it Betty.
And she has a birthday on the season of the watch every year.
Little bet.
And he now says that, you know, he's part white,
part female.
After all these years.
So that's funny. Yeah.
Oh, amazing.
You know, like we said before,
we just can't believe what you would have gone through,
you and your family.
And before we sort of finish up for today,
if you could go back,
is there anything you would say to yourself in the situation
on how you may have done things differently
or what you could look out for?
I mean, obviously we wish he had gone to the doctor's.
It's interesting.
He was going to doctors,
but they were looking at other things.
And I don't know, obviously you start at the GP
and if you're still having the same symptoms
and your GP is prescribing you things,
but it's not really helping, please go to a different one.
Just get another opinion.
And I feel like, I don't know why we feel like that's rude
or something on the first doctor.
I don't know what it is.
We're British.
So British.
Do you bother being an HS?
For Americans, this is not a thing.
We'll be like, nah, this guy doesn't know
what he's talking about.
Show me somebody better.
Don't burden the NHS.
Don't go, this is absolutely necessary.
But really, obviously I wish,
it still would have happened,
but we could have managed it a bit better
and a bit more in the beginning.
I actually am quite proud of myself
for getting through that.
I think that, and the family as well,
my children, my husband and everyone.
I think, yeah, I think, I don't know.
I think we all did a fairly good job.
Amazing.
And just to check, how's your husband now?
Yeah, all good.
Amazing.
Wow.
Fine, fine.
I mean, what is the long-term aftermath?
So the organ should last between 15 and 20 years.
So obviously we know already he'll need another one
at a certain point in time,
but there are some, there are medical tests
going on at the moment.
They're trying to find out a way
of having a mechanical kidney,
or using organs from other animals.
I think there was something in America recently.
I saw an article about a pig organ transplant.
I did see that.
But actually the other thing I would say,
it's weird because in my life,
I've always been a huge advocate for organ donorship,
and I've always had my donor card,
from when I could when I turned 18 in the UK,
I have my donor card,
and I really feel that it should be an opt-out system,
not opt-in.
And everyone's walking around with a spare kidney,
pretty much.
Right, there's bounty, right?
If you think about a family in your situation,
and those of us who would do,
like you said, it should be an opt-out.
I feel like your general humanity opt-in, right?
Yes, yes.
And it's like this surgery has been done,
tried and tested and been done.
Obviously it's not 100% safe,
but it is a well-trodden path, right?
And the specialist teams around the world,
because obviously I investigated like Plan A, B, C, D, right?
So Plan A was me here.
Plan B was maybe India completely privately.
I give my organ out,
and then we get another random one
if the matches work better that way.
Move to Spain.
We can't really use this again,
move to Spain.
Yeah, all day.
Or America, of course.
There's loads of kidney transplants done in America.
So I feel like it's a very,
it's more about please do if you're okay.
If someone in your family is going through this.
Obviously it's a big trauma,
and insurance is a bit more complicated for me now,
but so what?
I mean, that's life, right?
So 15 to 20 years, he should be good.
And then we'll find another one from somewhere,
maybe a mechanical one, who knows?
Yeah, amazing.
And how are you?
Fine, I mean fine.
So they check on me every year at Newcotts.
So I actually, it's really brilliant,
because if I have any health problems,
I just WhatsApp my coordinator still now.
Anything, and they get me to the best specialist doctors.
NUHR, amazing.
And that team at Newcotts are so wonderful.
And not just the doctors and the nurses,
but like all the support team,
like the people on the reception,
and they all know all those patients.
And they're long-term patients for that unit.
And how they keep doing that work,
day in, day out, and the camaraderie and everything,
it's really wonderful to watch.
So shout out to Parkway East,
shout out to NUH, you are getting our praises.
Absolutely, yeah.
Thank you, Claire.
It's been really wonderful hearing your story,
an incredibly scary, but inspiring story.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
This is Paul, our editor.
He's a 25-year-old unmarried Singaporean guy,
listening to the ramblings of 12 older women
on everything from menopause to weightlifting to sex.
So Paul, what's your thoughts on today's conversation?
Hey, what's up? Paul here.
So for this episode, I will be really honest.
I don't exactly have much of an opinion
because I've not been in a situation
with end-stage kidney failure
or any of my relatives going through it.
But, you know, Claire, I think what you shared today
was really useful, it's really helpful.
Especially like going through a time of crisis
where you least expect and what you did
and how you overcame, I guess, that sudden initial setback.
But at the same time, it's a really inspiring story
of how you went through the whole process
and yeah, and I guess continuing life,
but in a really positive way.
So thank you for sharing your story
and yeah, hope to catch you in the next one.
See ya.
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P plants.
I did the full Amritsar at Christmas.
Did you?
I went to the bindi, stayed with the family and I am a city girl.
To be fair, it's a trip I want to do with the boys.
Like at one point I said to my husband, when would be the right time to go to India with
the boys?
I think it's going to be a massive culture shock for them.
There's no right time.
So what I did was the last trip I had, it was with my mother-in-law, but not with my
husband.
I have butter with the vegetables and things.
They were doing everything fresh for me and I said, this is amazing.
We went in Feb and it was cold.
So cold I didn't actually want to wash my hair there so I kept going to the salon for
a blowout and I was like, it's so cheap.
The equivalent I think was to $10 to go get my hair washed and then blow it out and I
was like, oh I love this lifestyle.
And then we're back in Singapore and I'm like, we're not wearing hair now.
I didn't count on one hand the amount of blowouts I've had in 10 years.
It's my favorite thing to get my hair done.
I would choose that over a massage usually.
I love getting my hair done.
I find it quite nice.