Father’s gift of life revealed in television documentary

Raphael Havard was left in complete kidney failure, needing hours of dialysis a day, after developing the condition.

But he is now facing a happy, healthy life after father Duane, 51, donating a kidney.

A year on, the family’s story is being told in the documentary My Life: Me, My Dad & His Kidney, to be screened on BBC1 at 4.30pm today.

Manchester United fan Raphael fell ill in February last year.

Mr Havard and his wife Anna, 35, from Bedford, took him to the doctors and he was originally diagnosed with a stomach bug, and later with gastritis.

But as his condition continued to worsen over the following days, he was rushed to hospital where doctors consulted Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London about his alarming test results.

“They just put him in an ambulance– we live 70 miles from London and they drove him all the way there on blue lights,” said Mr Havard.

At Great Ormond Street, Raphael was diagnosed with complete kidney failure. He spent six weeks there, having three operations, 20 plasma exchanges and two blood transfusions.