Transplant boy inspires Cardiff school reunion - WalesOnline

Transplant boy inspires Cardiff school reunion - WalesOnline

A BRAVE eight-year-old boy has inspired his mum and her friends to reunite their old school pals for charity.

Sharon Breeze, 40, from Llanedeyrn, Cardiff, is organising a reunion for people who attended Cardiff’s Lady Mary High School between 1976 and 1985, to raise money for the Kidney Wales Foundation.

The party has been inspired by Sharon’s son George, who underwent a vital kidney transplant at the age of five.

Sharon and her friends, Maggie Powell and Debbie Colley, nee Heppell, thought holding a reunion for the Cyncoed school, which has now closed, would be a great way to raise money to help others like George.

Having been born with dyspraxia, a condition which affects development, the bubbly youngster has always had to work harder than most children to lead a normal life.

And when a routine blood test identified George’s kidney problems in 2005, Sharon and her husband Martin, 43, feared the worst. She said: “I thought he was going to die. I just thought it was the end of the world.

“Then I started researching it and I heard stories about people who had transplants and went on to live normal lives. Knowledge is power and that helped me through.”

Sharon said her son initially found it hard to understand his condition.

“The only way we could describe it to George was by telling him his battery was running out,” she said. “He seemed to understand that because when his toys’ batteries were low they would stop working.”

In March 2006, Martin donated a kidney to his son. Almost immediately after the transplant, Sharon saw the colour rush to her son’s cheeks.

The fundraising reunion is at St Peter’s Hall in Roath, Cardiff, from 7.30pm on Saturday, November 15. Tickets cost £5. For details, call Sharon on 07970 780288.