Robert’s poetic tribute to his ‘Beautiful Princess’

Well, Robert Smyth chose to write his daughter, Iilona, a poem after she underwent delicate surgery to have one of her kidneys removed - giving him a chance of life without renal failure and dialysis.

Although the family have decided to keep the poem private, they have allowed the Londonderry Sentinel to print one verse from the poem, which is 18 verses long.

In the poem Robert has charted his feelings of appreciation and love for Iilona, and he chose to present his daughter with the gift the night before the transplant.

“The night before the surgery we were in different wards and I went up to Dad’s ward where he was on dialysis for four or five hours and he asked me to wait a while longer because I wanted to go and see the anaesthetist.

“He said he had something to give me, so I waited for his dialysis session to finish and then he told me he had written a poem and he did not know how else to express his gratitude and he thought he would put pen to paper and express it this way. We went into his private room after his dialysis and he gave it to me and I read it and I just thought it was lovely. It is really personal and really sweet,” said Iilona.

“It is obvious that Dad is really appreciative, but some things are just private and between the family,” she said.

The verse they have chosen to share is:

‘Iilona, you have given me the greatest human gift of all

Time, time, time, in all its joys of great abundance

Time to spend with all my family, friends and loving wife

Time to prepare, time to appreciate God and you, you, you!’

Two days after getting life-saving surgery Robert was overjoyed to learn that after decades of campaigning the decision had finally been taken to re-organise the way in which testing is done so that would-be donors can now have all their tests in one day. Although it makes the process exhausting - because CAT scans, MRI and ECG scans and all manner of invasive blood and physical tests must be endured, nevertheless it dramatically cuts the amount of time and expense a person and their family must endure.

Robert illustrates this by telling me that in his own family they spent a six-figure sum bringing one family member home from the Americas over a two-year period because the test process was so spread out.

He greeted the news that testing had been reorganised: ““It was magnificent. I almost fell out of the bed because I could see the benefits for every potential donor and donor recipient. It was so uplifting, especially when you think that my son came across from America and spending 100,000 Dollars to be here for two years testing, which now, two years later can be done in one day. It is marvellous that it has moved on for everybody else on the waiting list.

“Now you will be able to go up and spend a whole day - and probably a long day - doing all the necessary tests and when that is done that would be you completed and within the week or fortnight you would know if you were a suitable donor or not,” he said, filled with an enthusiasm and energy that belies the fact that three weeks ago he would have still been practically unconscious with medication having been under the surgeon’s knife for hours.

Iilona, who has been listening quietly, adds: “They check you from head to toe to make sure there’s no abnormalities, but it is actually very good because it is like an MoT that you would not ordinarily get. So if there is anything wrong at all with you they will find it.

“This new system just makes so much more sense because we were going up to Belfast, and it was really a whole day to go up and do the testing and a couple of months later you were going up for another day, you know? All these days here, there and everywhere, and sometimes tests got lost and had to be redone, which happened, so your whole time was wasted, and you had to organise for babysitters and all of that. There was the expense of it too, so to know that you can go up for just one day and just do it all is great,” she said.

Reassuring

Iilona is frank about how she felt as the operation approached: “I was really great for most of it. There were other people in the ward with me for other procedures, and they were stressed out and I was reassuring them and was really good until they wheeled me away. The anaesthetist was supposed to give me something to relax me but he did not have time, so they just came in and I had to say goodbye to my husband and I was panicking then. I was looking for the transplant co-ordinator because she was supposed to be there and she was nowhere to be found, so I just wanted to be out as quickly as possible, to have it over me.”

Afterwards she was very ill for the first couple of days, but is still hit with waves of nausea and overwhelming tiredness.

“I hate being ill, it is worse for me than pain. Apart from that I am sleeping a lot, but they say that is when your body heals. I get up, have my breakfast and then it is time to go back to bed again.”