James C

Some people have said, ‘Does it feel strange to have someone else’s organ inside you?’ But that never has occurred to me – I’m a very practical fellow. And, yes, I’m enormously grateful for the … to the donor, but I don’t understand this concept of it feeling strange, or feeling I’ve got a foreign body in me. That has never occurred to me and I have been rather surprised at other people expressing this to me.

But what has surprised me – apparently, my friends say, ‘Oh, it’s the drugs’ – but what has surprised me is how emotional I have been in hospital; rather shocked me, actually. Because I’m not the sort of chap who weeps or cries, except at the odd thing. And I have been rather surprised at how I’ve got quite tearful and emotional, and felt rather guilty about this afterwards, and thought, now come along James, this is not cricket, behaving like this. But that has surprised me. Hopefully that will lessen. But one thing I do want to do is to write to the donors. Obviously, it’s … I don’t want some tremendous, emotional encounter, because I don’t think I’d be very good at that. But I do want to express my gratitude to them, for this new lease of life that they and the donor have kindly given me. For which I will always be very grateful.

It’s very interesting … I have spent the whole of my adult life with this very debilitating ulcerative colitis. But being a practical man I have hidden it for the whole of my adult life, and sometimes it has been extraordinarily difficult. And one’s friends … of course the price you pay for this is no-one really understands. Well, mainly because you don't want to be a special case, and you don't want to shove it in their faces, and so you chat and are happy at dinner parties and things, and then you ask to be excused to go to the loo, collapse in a sea of blood, and then come out and are chatty and fine again. And no-one really understands – why should they?

The difference with this, is of course there has been no escape. [laughs] And I have had the operation. And all my friends have been rather shocked, and said, ‘You needed that? Golly, you never told us.’ So that’s been a revelation to me, because I can't pretend any more. And what has been rather splendid is they have shown me how much they care, because one takes it for granted that friends are friends and that’s that. But actually, it has been a big eye-opener to me when they have shown, practically, how much they really do care. And that has been a good thing to learn in one’s life I think.