fate dealt one more cruel blow A BRAVE Bolton family are today coming to terms with the loss of a father who died believing he left the gift of a healthy future to his son.
As Terry Lightfoot, 59, lay dying of brain cancer, he had a burning hope - that his son, Chris, would at last have a chance of a normal life with the donation of his father's remaining kidney.
Sadly, tests indicated the transplant would not be successful and it did not take place.
It was to be Terry's second gift of love. He had already given one healthy kidney for transplant into Chris, but Chris's body rejected the organ after the operation in 1992.
Both Chris's brave sisters, Jill and Susan, had volunteered their kidneys, but Terry's was the match chosen.
After that transplant attempt, Terry, still on morphine from the pain of the operation, told his wife Norma: "It was worth it and I would do it again."
Chris has endured a life of pain, surgery and self-treatment in the dialysis unit built on to his home in Kenwood Road, Bolton. Now aged 29, he became one of the youngest patients to go on self-administered dialysis in 1987. But the keen snooker player carried on living as normal a life as possible.
Just before Christmas it seemed he had a second chance of a transplant when he was summoned into hospital, only to be told that, because of treatment for another complaint, his blood tests indicated the operation may not be a success. Someone else in the North-west received that donor kidney.
Through-out everything, the family have been sustained by the devoted care of Chris's mum. The former district nurse, has nursed her son and her husband - and raised substantial sums of money for hospitals and charities involved with the care of kidney patients.
Latterly she was at her husband's side as he lay, blinded by the tumour and sometimes comatose, in Withington Hospital.
Recently, a chest infection meant Terry had to have drugs administered and the residue of these in his blood would have impeded a transplant attempt. Jill said she felt her dad had been clinging to life until doctors gave his blood the "all clear" for his last attempt to give his son a healthier future.
Norma said Terry had died contented in the belief that his kidney might help Chris and that others would benefit by the donation of his other organs.
She hopes that his example may stir others to bequeath their healthy organs to people suffering from chronic complaints.
Meanwhile, Chris is still on the transplant list.
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