You just cannot plan for some weeks. I am sitting up in bed in Christchurch Hospital, the proud and grateful owner of a new kidney.
Monday morning started like most others, preparing for the working week, sending and replying to emails, making phone calls.
About 9am, I received a call from Dunedin Hospital. My number had come up. Five years and one month after starting dialysis, a matching kidney had been found for me from a deceased donor.
It was the real deal. The head of nephrology at Dunedin Hospital, Prof Rob Walker, examined me and gave me the all-clear. My wife Liz, a dialysis nurse at the hospital, rushed home and threw some bits and pieces in a bag and I made the 12.55pm flight to Christchurch with two minutes to spare.
While I flew, Liz began the long drive towards Christchurch. At 3.30pm, after a hurried preparation, I was wheeled into theatre. At 9pm, I was back in my single room, where Liz was waiting for me and my new kidney.
For the next two days I was "specialled" by nurses who looked after me around the clock and who woke me hourly during the night to check the kidney was functioning and, as I drifted in and out of consciousness, I realised how fortunate my life had been.
Liz was working as a dialysis nurse when we met in England in 1974. She was blissfully unaware then that she would one day have me as a "patient".
The first year on dialysis was difficult. I was in and out of Dunedin Hospital 13 times with various ailments and it was difficult to establish a proper routine.
But then came the great day in December 2008 when a dialysis machine was installed in our home.
We were both able to work during the day and Liz helped me with my dialysis at night.
It's been tough on her; patients in hospital all day, then me, but there's never been a word of complaint. Selfless, totally unflappable, that's Liz.
I have been privileged to have my own nurse 24/7. There may be another patient somewhere whose wife is a dialysis nurse but I have not heard of him. They are long odds.
Problems which might have seemed mountainous to other patients have been molehills to me. Liz has calmly solved them.
We resolved once we had the machine at home that we would make every day count, that we would wring every possible experience out of our lives.
In the past four years, we have been to England (twice) and to the Northern Territory and Queensland in Australia.
Dialysis patients obviously can't just hop on a plane and go.
The first priority is to arrange hospital dialysis and that usually takes months of planning.
The travel has made a hole in our pockets but it has given us priceless memories - dialysing with the Aboriginals in Darwin, dining under the stars in Alice Springs, going back to my favourite English cricket grounds.
Goals are important for everyone, including dialysis patients. I have walked the Dunedin half marathon for the past two years. Trivial, really, but it was a little milestone to tick off.
I have met some inspirational and courageous dialysis patients.
Their strength has given me strength.
The family support system has swung into gear this week. My elder daughter Becca, her dairy farmer husband Grant and children Zoe and Sam rushed from their Omarama holiday bach to support Liz in Christchurch. In Dunedin, our neighbour Richard, younger daughter Cathryn and her boyfriend Paul are looking after our house and mowing the lawns.
The surgeons say the early signs are encouraging, but it will probably be some time before we know whether the transplant has been successful.
I am eternally grateful for the unexpected gift and the prospect of the freedom of life without a machine, and of a more normal life for Liz.
But I could never be resentful of dialysis machines. My mother died of kidney failure when she was 47. Had there been machines available then, I would have known her for a lot longer.
We are optimistic but it is not the end of the world if the transplant is not a success. The past five years have emphasised to me that, with love, support and a bit of discipline, you can lead a fulfilling life on a machine and that most things are still possible.
I guess I never realised how the gutsy little girl I met in England 38 years ago would change my life in so many different and positive ways.
