When Jake Maudsley was selected for the football world cup for transplant patients , he thought of his dad Craig. Login or signup to continue reading Jake, 28, will be forever grateful to his dad for donating a kidney to him. "He did it because I'm his son, but it's still such a huge thing to go through such a major surgery," Jake said.
"I always joke that there's no take backs on the kidney, but it's always close by when Dad and I are travelling around together for work each day." Jake, of Windermere Park in south-west Lake Macquarie, will represent Australia at the Transplant Football World Cup in Italy in September. He had his transplant in October 2020, having suffered renal failure since age 15 due to Alport syndrome.
"I woke up and felt like a million bucks. I wanted to run down the halls," he said. Football had long been a big part of his life.
He had played the round-ball game for 20 years. "After the transplant I was hesitant and fearful of going back to play in my local competition," he said. "All-age teams can get quite aggressive and the kidney is quite exposed in the abdomen.
There's no protection around it." He tried to remain active, but missed playing. When he saw a call out for the World Cup trials in December last year, he hadn't played in three years.
"As soon as I laced my boots up, it took me back and made me feel like a new person again. It was rejuvenating," he said. He is looking forward to playing football again with a team that "understands my physic.
