PETALING JAYA: It was in March last year that Noor Farahin Ahmat heard that her son Muhammad Amirul Izzat Lokman Noor, 22, was having serious kidney problems.
“I was worried as he had also slipped into a coma at Egypt’s Al Azhar Hospital intensive care unit. His blood pressure had shot up and he had to undergo dialysis,” she told theSun.
It was a time when movement restrictions were in place, which meant Noor Farahin could not travel to meet her son.
All she could do was wait by phone at their home in Cheras.
It was at around the same time that Amirul, a law student at Al Azhar University in Cairo, was confirmed with IgA nephropathy, a kidney disease that occurs when an antibody called immunoglobulin A (IgA) builds up in the kidneys.
According to medical reports, it results in a local inflammation that hampers the ability of the kidneys to filter waste from the blood.
“I’m told that it is a common condition. This was later confirmed by our doctors at Kuala Lumpur Hospital when he was flown home,” she said, adding that Amirul had to undergo dialysis four times a day.
The odds for Amirul seemed slim as he needed a kidney transplant and Farahin was told that as she had a U-shaped “horseshoe” kidney, which meant she may not be a suitable donor.
However, it was later determined that the procedure could be done, although it was the first of its kind in Malaysia.
The operation was coordinated by a urologist and renal transplant surgeon, Dr Vijayan Manogran.
“The surgery, which was conducted in May, took six hours to complete,” Noor Farahin said.
“The first two weeks of our recovery were crucial as there was a huge blood clot and we lacked sleep. Thankfully, I was able to drive after one month.”
Amirul is now on a semester break while undergoing weekly check-ups at Kuala Lumpur Hospital to ensure that his body has not rejected the kidney.
Vijayan noted that there have been 11 reported cases in the world of a living nephrectomy patient using a horseshoe kidney from a donor.
“Renal transplant here is advancing and we are doing more and more challenging cases. We have done multiple vessels (multiple renal arteries and veins), which is now routine for our centre. We have now done this interesting and challenging horseshoe living-related renal transplant. Interesting and exciting times are ahead for our transplant services in Kuala Lumpur Hospital, which is the premier government hospital in the country.”
