BEST GIFT FOR A GREAT XMAS

A FATHER will be spending the festive season at home with his young family for the first time in four years following a life-changing kidney transplant in August this year.

- BY DANNY DE VAAL

Dave Healy will be home in Carrigaline, Co Cork, with wife Sarah St Leger and their kids, Darragh, two, and Saoirse, four, having spent more than two and a half years attending dialysis treatment at Cork University Hospital.

His schedule required three haemodialysis sessions a week, each lasting three hours, all while continuing to work and parent as best he could.

"Dave was diagnosed four years ago with chronic kidney disease, just after we had our first baby. Dialysis kept him alive, but drained him," Sarah said.

"It sometimes felt like I was sole parenting. We were both doing our best, but between him working full time and dialysis treatment in hospital, he had almost no energy left. Our parents helped out when ever they could."

The mum added: "The prospect of spending Christmas morning in hospital receiving dialysis treatment, away from the excitement of our children opening their presents and enjoying playing with them, had weighed heavily on Dave.

SELFLESS