The Surgeon's Perfect Match

by Alison Roberts

  Not that Ryan had said anything more about his offer, but it was impossible not to feel a personal connection with someone else on a waiting list for a transplant. Holly received a hug from the twins and smiles from Michaela’s parents as she sat on the end of the bed to admire Sooty properly.

  If only it was something as simple as a kidney that Michaela needed so desperately. The teenager was loved by more than her immediate family. Aunts, uncles, cousins—even grandparents—would be queuing up to be tested if they had the opportunity to do anything to save her.

  The warning about Sooty needing to keep a lower profile resulted in one of the twins stuffing the kitten beneath the covers of Michaela’s bed and the very mobile lump provoked complete hilarity. Holly was still smiling as she left the room a short time later but, like Ryan, the smile faded rapidly as the reality of the situation hit home.

  Anyone who knew Michaela would be touched by her plight. The girl’s courage, humour and ability to find joy in life despite everything was inspirational. The sudden notion that if it had been a kidney Michaela needed and she’d had no close relatives and Holly had been healthy, she would seriously have considered getting herself tested as a match was something of a revelation.

  Had that been why Ryan had made his offer?

  Not that it made any difference to her being in a position to accept, but the thought did give Holly an odd buzz. She had only ever been doing what she had to do in order to survive, but she had tried to do it without losing her sense of humour or appreciation of what life still had to offer. She had never set out to impress others but something about the idea that she might have touched Ryan in the same way Michaela’s case touched her made Holly feel a kind of shy pride in the way she had coped so far.

  And somehow it made persevering just that much more worthwhile. Holly could even face the new prospect of dialysis every second night with renewed determination. It was ironic that Ryan had used a measure of renal function for the pretence of a professional conversation to cover their blocking of Michaela’s window. Holly had just had her own results back that morning and things were not looking great. Thank goodness tomorrow was the last day of a working week that was proving unusually stressful.

  Sooty the kitten had provided a lift in what would have otherwise been a depressing occasion with yet another admission and a serious complication for Michaela Brown.

  Another lift came towards the end of the day. The arrival of three members of Auckland’s Blues Super 12 rugby team would have caused a stir anywhere. That they were being followed by a television news crew made everyone stop and stare.

  ‘We’ve come to visit Daniel,’ Scott Griggs informed the charge nurse.

  ‘We hear he’s a bit of a fan of ours and he’s just been through some major surgery,’ his companion added. ‘We’ve got a ball for him.’

  Not just any ball. This one had been signed by every member of the Blues. It was a treasure.

  Holly dropped the last set of case notes she’d been returning back into their slot in the trolley and pushed it clear of the entourage. So they’d heard Daniel was a rugby fan? And ‘Sox’ was actually there to present the treasure? There was only one person who could have arranged that, and Holly went searching.

  She found Ryan in his office.

  ‘So that was what the phone call was about? How on earth did you work that?’

  ‘Friend of a friend.’ Ryan grinned. ‘I was in the first fifteen at school, you know. Some of my mates went on to bigger and better things in rugby.’

  Holly stared at him in amazement. With his impressive height of well over six feet and a solid build, she could imagine him being able to provide muscle to any scrum. But, of course, she hadn’t known that. She didn’t really know anything about the man Ryan was. She only knew the surgeon. A medical professional who would go out of his way twice in one day to make life a little better for the children he came into contact with. Holly had to swallow hard in order to clear the painful constriction in her throat.

  ‘Has anyone ever told you what a nice person you are, Ryan Murphy?’

  He shrugged off the compliment. ‘So Sox is there himself?’ He sounded thoughtful as he stood up. ‘I might just wander across and say hello.’ His smile had an appealing element of embarrassment at any obvious eagerness he’d displayed. He made an effort to sound more casual. ‘Want to come?’

  Holly shook her head. ‘I reckon it’s more of a boy thing. You go.’ Her smile was mischievous. ‘You never know your luck—you might get an autograph.’

  ‘Won’t be long,’ Ryan promised. ‘We need to duck into ICU and review Grace before we clock out. Wait for me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Holly was grateful for a few minutes’ respite. The excitement in the ward was more than she could have handled with the crippling weariness taking hold again. She felt a wave of nausea and sank into Ryan’s chair as soon as he’d left the office. The screen on his computer provided a distraction. Her boss had clearly been using a few spare minutes to catch up on current affairs and the headline stories of the day from one of the major newspapers were on display. One of them caught Holly’s eye immediately.

  BACKLASH FROM TRANSPLANT HOPEFULS

  She clicked on the headline and brought up the story. A group of people on the national waiting list for organ transplants were outraged by the response to the publicity given to Steve Mersey’s medical crisis. If people were so keen to donate an organ to a complete stranger, the group queried, why didn’t they make themselves available to one of the hundreds of hopefuls who were waiting years for the chance of a cadaveric transplant? Why did being good at a sporting endeavour make someone so much more deserving? Maybe these people should log onto one of the websites devoted to people trying to find a match and help an ordinary person to continue living, they argued.

  Holly was on the national waiting list. She was probably facing a longer wait than most to find a perfect match, but she couldn’t agree with the outrage. Offering an organ was an heroic thing to do. You’d have to be touched very deeply to consider making that offer. The way Holly was by Michaela, for instance. The way people out there were touched by the story of a national sporting hero. But to make such an offer to a complete stranger? No way.

  And yet, wasn’t Holly demanding a stranger’s kidney for herself in preference to one from someone who knew her and was possibly touched by her own case? Was she guilty of a double standard here?

  The end of the article listed web links for anyone interested in learning more about the need for organ transplants. Almost idly, still seeking a distraction from the physical symptoms resulting from exhaustion, Holly clicked on one, and an organ-match site came up instantly. It was easy to click on ‘kidneys’ and then ‘patient profiles’. Holly scrolled down to find page after page of links to people begging for help. Subject lines like:

  Help. I need a kidney to live

  Single mum needs kidney

  Please—read my story—I’m desperate!

  Are you the one?

  It was all a bit painfully close to home but delving more deeply was irresistible. Why hadn’t she ever been tempted to join any support groups or tried to make contact with other people in her position? Independence could be a lonely business.

  The website was based in the United States and Holly clicked on one of the profile titles to learn more. The single mother’s name was Marci and she was only twenty-three. She had done dialysis every day of her pregnancy and the father of her baby had walked out when her son had been two months old. Her baby was now approaching his first birthday and Marci was begging for a chance to watch him grow. She needed a donor who was O or A positive and under ‘requirements of donor’ she simply asked for anyone with a giving heart.

  Ryan Murphy had a ‘giving heart’. Maybe Marci would be lucky enough to meet someone like him.

  A thirty-year-old male called Mike was advertising for a donor with B or O type blood. He wanted to be able to sleep without a noisy machine
keeping him awake. He wanted a chance to have a relationship but the only girl he’d ever brought home had been freaked out by the machinery.

  Holly could identify with that. Her machinery had been enough to end a relationship she’d had great hopes for once. Mike was the same age as her. He hadn’t given up hope of finding someone yet. He just wanted to be healthy enough to try. In his requirements for a donor, he asked for the chance to get to know the person who would be giving such a gift and for them to get to know him.

  One patient profile had been deleted. Instead there was a message from the father of the kidney-disease sufferer saying that a kidney was no longer needed because, sadly, his daughter had died on the fifteenth of July. He expressed heartfelt thanks to all those who had responded and tried to help. But then she found another, full of the joy of success. There was even a video clip to watch with an interview from the patient, a woman, and the donor—a friend of her husband’s. He was a part of their family now and they were all working together to set up a trust that could help others. The donor urged others to follow his example, claiming that he had never done anything so worthwhile in his entire life.

  A fifty-eight-year-old woman, Gloria, pleaded for help. She suffered from diabetes, was blind, had high blood pressure and cardiac problems and had had triple bypass surgery a year ago. She’d had countless operations but her venous access kept failing with clots or infections and she was now trying to cope with peritoneal dialysis. Time that she desperately wanted to spend with her seven grandchildren was running out and she was now too weak to leave her house.

  Almost unconsciously, Holly stroked her forearm. Her current fistula, where an artery and vein were joined to make the access point larger, was working fine, but it was her second site. Her other forearm was scarred and lumpy where the first had failed. She was otherwise quite healthy, though. What hope did this poor woman have? People would read her story and be quite justified in thinking that giving a healthy kidney to someone with so many other problems would be a waste.

  Holly read on. And on. She wished Ryan would come back and distract her because she couldn’t stop reading all these sad pleas for help. So many people with so many different lives, but they all wanted the same thing. Some were her own age but others, like Gloria, were much older and they still weren’t prepared to give up. Some wanted a chance to continue their careers, others just wanted more time with the people they loved. There was something touching in every story.

  How thrilled would any one of these people be to have someone like Ryan in their lives, offering what they wanted most? None of them would turn him down.

  So what the hell did Holly think she was doing?

  What would happen next year, maybe, or the year after, when she still hadn’t been lucky enough to find a transplant match and she was too sick to continue working at all or even live independently? Would she be living with the regret of not accepting Ryan’s offer?

  Would he go to her funeral and feel sad or possibly angry that things could have been very different?

  Holly was really fighting tears now. She didn’t want to die. She wanted what all these people wanted.

  A chance to live. To live a normal life. To work and play. To love and be loved.

  Ryan strode back towards his office with a spring in his step and a smile on his face that wouldn’t go away.

  He’d never seen a kid as happy as Daniel had been. That rugby ball wouldn’t be leaving his hands for a very long time. He’d probably sleep with a huge lump under his pillow. Being interviewed for television had been exciting, but it had come a poor second to the opportunity to actually meet his rugby heroes. Poor kid had been completely tongue-tied for the first ten minutes of the visit.

  Hopefully, Holly was still waiting for him. He hadn’t intended to be so long, but the television crew had wanted some detail on the type of surgery Daniel had been through, and good publicity for the hospital never went astray when it came to fundraising time.

  Which reminded him, he needed to think about getting sponsorship for the annual City to Surf fun run, which was less than three months away. St Margaret’s staff and supporters got dressed up in sometimes ridiculous costumes and went out to demonstrate how unfit most of them were, but last year they had raised enough money to purchase a new state-of-the-art incubator for the neonatal intensive care unit so the cause was very worthwhile.

  Ryan was toying with various ideas for costumes that wouldn’t prove too embarrassing but would still be entertaining enough to elicit generous donations from the public en route, and was still smiling as he basked in the aftermath of sharing young Daniel’s happiness when he opened his office door.

  Never had a smile been wiped off his face so fast.

  Holly was crying!

  Ryan crossed the space between them in less than two strides.

  ‘My God, Holly, what’s happened? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Holly blinked furiously and scrubbed at her face, but another tear escaped. ‘I’m fine, really.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Ryan held out his hand. ‘Come here, Holly.’

  She let him pull her to her feet and then he kept pulling until she was in his arms and then, for the first time ever, he hugged his registrar.

  ‘You can’t tell me it’s nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Not when I’ve never seen you cry before.’

  She made a sound halfway between a hiccup and a laugh but she didn’t try to pull away. And it was so good to feel his arms around her like this.

  Too good.

  Ryan eased his hold and Holly stepped back instantly. The tears had vanished.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But you only have yourself to blame.’

  ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You’ve been gone so long. I was amusing myself on the net. I started reading about the flak that Steve Mersey has generated with publicity on his kidney problems but I ended up reading about a whole bunch of people trying to find a new kidney. Some of the stories were so sad.’

  ‘Oh…’ Ryan wasn’t sure what to say. Holly hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to revisit their conversation of a few days ago and he was determined not to put any pressure on her, but she was upset right now and he had to try and help. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Have we got time? Shouldn’t we be going to see Grace?’

  ‘Grace isn’t going anywhere. And neither are we, until we’ve had a chance to talk. Anything that’s made you cry has got to be important.’

  Holly sank slowly back into Ryan’s chair behind his desk. She glanced at the computer screen for a long, silent moment and then turned her gaze up to Ryan.

  ‘This…’ she waved her hand at the website still showing on the screen ‘…has made me really think about the people who offer a kidney to others.’ She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. ‘I can understand why people do it for a family member or their partners. I can even sympathise with the people who’ve read about Steve Mersey and come forward because he’s famous and people are touched by his success, but…’

  Ryan was way ahead of her. Holly wanted to know what it was about her that was special to him. And if he started telling her that, he might reveal far too much and put Holly off completely. He had to think fast. And carefully. Ryan was hopeless at lying but he didn’t have to tell the whole truth, did he?

  He sat on the edge of his desk, the movement distracting Holly from trying to finish her sentence. He kept his gaze on her face and was pleased that his smile seemed to chase away some of the tension darkening her eyes.

  ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this, Holly.’

  Her eyebrows rose sharply. ‘Just how many kidneys do you have, Ryan Murphy?’

  He laughed. So did Holly and suddenly the tension seemed to evaporate.

  ‘The last time was a donation for a bone-marrow transplant.’

  Holly looked interested rather than surprised. ‘Was it successful?’

  ‘No.’


  ‘Oh…that must have been awful.’

  Ryan merely gave a brief nod. It was Holly he wanted to talk about, not himself. ‘It wasn’t a perfect match and it wasn’t enough to combat the disease. Nothing like the same scenario as giving you a kidney. I had a general anaesthetic for the marrow harvest so I took pretty much the same risk. A minimal risk, as far as I’m concerned,’ he added firmly.

  ‘You’d have to live with a single kidney for the rest of your life. That’s a risk as well.’

  ‘Also minimal. One kidney is perfectly adequate and I’m not intending to take up playing rugby again or engage in any other activities that might risk injury to a single organ.’ He frowned at Holly. ‘I hope you’re not planning to take up paragliding or rock climbing or something.’

  She grinned but was still intent on her own line of thought.

  ‘What does your family think about you giving bits of yourself away?’

  ‘I don’t have any close family. Or any dependants.’

  ‘But you might well get married one day. Your wife might not appreciate some other woman running around with one of her husband’s kidneys.’

  It was Ryan’s turn to take a deep, and hopefully settling, breath. He couldn’t say what sprang to mind—that the only woman he could conceive of wanting to spend the rest of his life with would be the one that had that kidney.

  ‘If I ever got married again,’ he said carefully, ‘it would be to someone who was special enough to understand and appreciate why I had done something like that.’

  Holly’s jaw had dropped. ‘Again?’

  ‘My wife—Elise—was the person I donated bone marrow to.’

  He could see the wheels turning. Could see Holly trying to refocus some mental picture. Trying to imagine his wife, perhaps? Wondering if she reminded him of Elise strongly enough to have prompted his offer? He couldn’t let her think that and it was just so far from the truth it should be easy to refute.

  ‘I nearly became a vet,’ he told Holly. She blinked at the apparently random comment but Ryan carried on. ‘I had a dog when I was a kid. Flint. A big, fat, black Labrador. We grew up together. By the time I was fifteen, Flint was old. He had arthritis and must have been in a lot of pain a lot of the time, but he never complained. He took what life dished out and he made the best of it. Even when he was too old and sore to chase a stick he was still a happy dog and he was so good to have around. I think his attitude to life helped me through more than one teenage crisis.’