Amali Teodorescu -- Team Romania

Age: 30

Transplant: Kidney, 1995

Hometown: Com. Costesti, jud. Valcea

Events: Table tennis and 400 M race

Amali's Story: I was born, grew up, and was reborn in Romania, a wonderful country placed on the west side of the Black Sea. My mother gave me one of her kidneys, and, so I was born again. In the beginning of 1995, when the operation took place, I was among the first 50 people to receive a kidney transplant in Romania.

After the transplant, I felt that my family grew bigger, with the addition of a few people: Mihai Lucan, professor of urology, and his remarkable team, and my nephrologists, Ioan Mihai Patiu and Simona Racasan.

I could almost not believe that I am the same person who was on dialysis three years ago. After dialysis, I had a miserable sensation and I needed to be carried in a stretcher.

How is my life after my transplant?

It is like a sunlit day. It is like a beautiful dream. It is full a full and ative life. I live in a mountain village and work in the school there, where I teach computer skills. My school children know that when they have a cold they don't have to come to my class because I, and our computers, can get a virus! I like children and working together gives me a lot of satisfaction. I like to travel, read, listen to music (especially preclassic music) and am very glad I can have pleasant visits with my parents, sister, and friends. It is absolutely extraordinary that I feel so good that I almost forget my troubled past. In my country, kidney transplants are not a usual practice because government funding is inadequate. I hope that my friends and my participation in the XI World Transplant Games through Trans-Club (The Romanian Transplant Sport Association) will encourage Romanian politicians to allocate more funding for transplants. They will see that the transplant gave me a normal life. Maybe they will understand that transplants are an ailing person's dream which can give people a new, wonderful, and normal life.

My message to the world is: Listen to me good people, doing everything you can is not too much to do to help ailing people.

 

Last modified: 11 May 2000