By BRIDGET COOK
TOORADIN’s Jill Butcher is a pretty remarkable woman in her family’s eyes, she just doesn’t see it.
Donating a kidney to her brother to save his life while helping her daughter through her aggressive breast cancer treatment was her just doing what she could to help, according to a humble Ms Butcher.
Her daughter Kate definitely has a different view.
“It’s think it’s pretty remarkable what she did,” she said.
“She might not think it, but she is pretty amazing.
“She says she wasn’t much help to me during my treatment because of her operation, but she was taking me to hospital, there when I was sick after chemo making sure I was still alive and helping to look after Tamara, my daughter.”
After 12 months of tests to ensure she was a suitable donor, Ms Butcher underwent surgery on 7 March to donate a kidney to her brother Bill Huxtable.
Mr Huxtable, who lives in Western Australia, had been on dialysis for the past three years and was on death row without a transplant.
The operation went well at Monash Medical Centre and now the pair are well on the road to recovery, and Mr Huxtable is set to move back home in the next few weeks to his wife.
Mr Huxtable said he owed his life to his sister.
“Being on dialysis is a horrendous thing,” he said.
“I can’t express how thankful I am actually, what can you say?
“I can’t believe how I feel now, and look, compared to what I was.
“Without the transplant I believe, and according to my specialist, I wouldn’t have been here by the end of this year.
“I just feel so luck that she was a suitable donor, as there are so many boxes that have to be ticked.
“I’m not only thankful for Jill, but everyone down here who was involved.”
Ms Butcher said she also wanted to thank everyone who made the process so much easier.
“It’s really been a community effort,” she said.
“Monash was excellent, my freezer was full of food from people and I had a friend stay while I was still in hospital.
“When Bill came home here, he had to go to Monash every day.
“We had family and friends on a car roster to take him down there. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help.”
Ms Butcher said donating a kidney was just her way of helping.
“His time was running out,” she said.
“I you can do it, then just do it.
“I don’t think there was another option.
“When you see the difference in him, it makes you feel really good.
“And I didn’t do it just for him, but for the whole family and it affected the whole family.
“His wife had no life either with Bill.
“We hoped it was going to turn out well and there’d at least be an improvement and it turned out to be better than expected.”
Jill’s husband Trevor said he was also proud of his wife.
“She’d do it again if she had to I’m sure – She’s still got another good one,” he joked.
