A 52 YEAR-old Pensnett butcher is celebrating a new lease of life after being given the all-clear following a successful kidney transplant.

David Tomlinson, of Tomlinson butchers on Commonside, received the transplant at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital on November 15 following a nine-year wait for a lifesaving organ.

And after being given the news the kidney had taken, David and his family have launched a fundraising campaign to raise as much money as possible for the Russells Hall Hospital-based Dudley Kidney Patients Association to celebrate.

The first of the fundraisers is taking place on Sunday (March 25) with a sponsored swim at The Wordsley School in Brierley Hill Road from 1.30pm until 4pm, organised by his swimming teacher daughter, Amy.

And to mark his new lease of life David is starting off the event by swimming the first few widths.

David’s wife, Mandy, aged 44, said: “This is our way of saying thank you to all the surgeons, doctors and nurses who have looked after David so well and to tell other renal patients not to give up.”

The dad-of-four and granddad-of-two, was just 39 when he was diagnosed with renal failure and has spent the last thirteen years enduring 10 hour dialysis treatment every night, having blood samples taken every three months, while on the transplant list waiting for that phone call to say a matched kidney had been found.

After a failed transplant attempt in March 2011, the long-awaited call came in November to say a kidney, flown all the way from Belfast, was the perfect match.

Mandy said: “That phone call was absolutely fantastic, you just can’t put that feeling into words, we were all so excited but anxious that it may not work.

“It has been such an emotional rollercoaster watching him get so poorly over the years. He was very slowly giving up, so we’ve been to hell and back.

“But now we are having to pinch ourselves that this is all real after doctors said everything is fine. Now there is no more dialysis and no more treatment and we can look to the future.”

Anyone wishing to donate towards the campaign can send funds to the butchers shop at 95 Commonside, Pensnett, DY5 4AJ.