Mum's gift means lorry driver can take on 10k race

A LORRY driver from Swansea will be taking on the Brecon Carreg CDF 10K to thank his mum for donating her kidney.

- EMMA BOFF

James Murphy, 39, will also be running to raise awareness of kidney disease a condition he was diagnosed with eight years ago.

He said: "At the time the diagnosis seemed really sudden but looking back I realised how long I'd been deteriorating for.

"My family had been mentioning that I was losing colour and weight but it’s something you don’t realise in yourself when you look in the mirror every day.

"I was feeling very tired too but just put it down to getting older and having kids.

"Still, I thought I better get myself checked out."

Blood tests at the hospital revealed that James had kidney disease and his kidney function was just 4%.

He immediately started dialysis treatment at Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

James said: "It was a real shock and hit me like a ton of bricks I'd never heard of this before and now it was becoming my reality.

"I thought it would just be a little bit of treatment and then I'd be done, I didn’t realise I'd need to have this treatment for months."

The doctors also discovered that James's kidneys were quite small and that he'd need to have a transplant.