Medal haul for young Kian after life-changing transplant

Monday 07 August 2023

An eight-year-old boy from Jersey is celebrating scooping two medals at the British Transplant Games – just six months after undergoing a life-changing kidney transplant.

Kian Channing won a gold medal in the obstacle course and a silver in table tennis at the British Transplant Games, a four-day event which took place in Coventry at the end of last month.

Up until around six months ago, Kian had been on dialysis for two-and-a-half years, and was hoping for a kidney transplant.

His mum, Kirsty Channing, explained: "Kian has a lot of rare antibodies so there was only a 5% chance of finding a match. We expected to wait a long, long time for a transplant."

Late one evening in January, Kirsty received a phone call from one of her son's consultants from Southampton Hospital informing her that a match had been found from a deceased donor.

"Within a couple of hours, we were on the air ambulance to the UK," Kirsty recalled.

Pictured: Kian won a silver medal in table tennis, despite only ever playing in hospital before!

"It was so surprising. I'll never be able to put into words the emotions that I felt from that phone call," she added.

However, it was not plain sailing, as Kian's body rejected the new kidney within the first few weeks.

He also suffered two kidney infections alongside juggling high doses of powerful medication.

Kirsty said that – "touch wood" – Kian has been doing well for the last couple of months, which meant that he was just in time to join the Southampton Children's Team for the British Transplant Games.

"He only just met the threshold [for the Games]," she explained. "You have to be six months post-transplant and Kian had his in January!"

Pictured: Kian and some of his fellow Southampton team members – all of whom are kidney transplant recipients.

Kian won a gold medal in the obstacle course and a silver in table tennis, which his mum described as "amazing" and "he'd only ever played table tennis before while in hospital".

However, Kirsty said that the most rewarding part of the experience was the "chance to compete on a level playing field".

She explained: "When Kian does sports at school, he tries his best but struggles to keep up with the other kids. It was really nice to give him the chance to compete on a level playing field and actually win some things!"

Kirsty also said that the atmosphere at the British Transplant Games was "really lovely" and "supportive".

Pictured: The Southampton team members are now trying to raise enough money to participate in next year's Transplant Games.

"All of the Southampton kids were kidney transplant recipients so they were all reminding each other when it was time to take their meds! It made Kian feel normal."

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Following his success in Coventry, Kian is now "looking forward to next year's Games" which are taking place in Nottingham.

The team are hoping to raise £20,000 to fund their entry next year.

You can donate HERE.