Inside Story: Loving Mum Lorraine giving Kidney to daughter Zowiann

LOVING mum Lorraine Flood just wants to see her daughter enjoying a life of happiness and health.
For 10 years Lorraine has watched helplessly as daughter Zowiann battles to cope with a rare genetic disorder that is slowly killing her kidneys.

The Falconi's Cystinosis condition means both her kidneys are literally like teabags, full of perforations which drain away all the essential nutrients her little body needs to work and grow.

Zowiann takes 16 different forms of medication every day and has to be fed at night while she's asleep because she just won't eat. She's already spent more time in hospital than most of her classmates at Maes y Coed Primary in Pontypridd will in a lifetime.

But now, Lorraine, 44, (pictured with Zowiann) is full of hope after results showed she is a near-perfect match for a kidney transplant for her daughter.

It's now just a question of waiting for the time to be right for the transplant to take place, said Lorraine, who works for Cardiff Council Social Services department. It could be 18 months, or even two years. But at least now I know there is hope and I can play a major part in giving Zowiann back her health.

For years I have said I would give anything to see her running around like all her friends without a care in the world. Now my dreams may at last come true, it will make such a difference to all our lives to have her fit and healthy.

Zowiann, who marked her 10th birthday at the Millennium Stadium watching Wales capture the Grand Slam, lives with her mum and dad, Patrick, in Lanwern Road, Maes y Coed, Pontypridd.

Former bus driver Patrick said: Zowiann is totally shattered 90 per cent of the time, but when she's awake she gives 150 per cent. We have received tremendous support from the Kidney Wales Foundation and the staff at the University Hospital in Cardiff. Without them we wouldn't be where we are today.

Zowiann is also a great supporter of KWF and wrote to Neath-born opera star Katherine Jenkins (pictured right with Zowiann) asking her to help publicise the charity, and the singer duly visited her young fan in the hospital's renal unit.

Although a kidney transplant will help Zowiann beat the genetic condition, it will not prevent a chemical build up in her body from continuing to attack her major organs. Many of the drugs she takes, as well as helping her to retain essential nutrients, are designed to prevent those chemical levels rising. But these make her sick and she has to take more drugs to combat the nausea.

Thanks to her mum, Zowiann is one of the lucky kidney patients of Wales. All being well she should receive her new kidney and a new life.

But there are hundreds of others who are continuing to wait in hope that a transplant match can be found in time for them. More than 270 kidney patients are awaiting a transplant in South Wales alone.

It costs upto 30,000 a year to keep a patient on kidney dialysis, while the cost of a transplant is no more than 25,000 in the first year. That's an enormous difference in money and life.