21 Things People Don't Tell You About Having Transplant Surgery

And I don't mean #humbled, like a pop star boastfully posting an Instagram picture of the Grammy they just won. I mean genuinley humbled.

Partly, this is because its darkly kind of comic for a doctor to look at you and essentially say, "Your body is so bad at being alive that there are dead people better at it than you." But mostly it's because you suddenly become enormously reliant on the astonishing selflessness of someone you probably don't even know.

I didn't understand how grateful I could be until someone gave part of their body to ease suffering in mine.

When you're waiting for a transplant, you'll be astonished by how many friends and family members support you or even ask if they can donate.

When I was told I needed a transplant to save my sight, my elderly grandparents went into a high street opticians and asked if they could donate their eyes.

People don't just need kidney or liver transplants. Transplant surgeries can range from small gum tissue grafts to double-lung and heart transplants. Skin, bone, bone marrow, tendons and even hands can all be transplanted.

You're overjoyed that you're going to get the operation you need. But you're nervous because you're about to undergo serious surgery. And, unless your operation will use a living donor, you feel guilty that someone selfless has died. It's a real emotional roller-coaster.

Before my operation, I thought I'd spend the rest of my life questioning who my donor was. But I don't. The only information I was allowed to know is that the donation I received was "age appropriate".

After your transplant, when you're not taking medicine or changing your dressing, you think about rejection. You can't help it. Every time you twinge or itch, your brain screams, "OH MY GOD IS MY TRANSPLANT REJECTING?!"

My transplant was relatively minor – a cornea, to stop me going blind – and even that required round-the-clock aftercare. What's more, it took 2 years of tests and follow-up procedures before I had decent vision in my eye. And recipients of major organ transplants have it far harder: They often have to take drugs to suppress their immune systems for the rest of their lives.

Before my surgery I was told it would prevent me being able to legally hold a professional boxing licence in Europe or North America.

The Transplant Games are a kind of mini-Olympics for transplant patients that encourage us to keep fit. Having a transplant could even encourage you to do more sport than you did before.

If you need a transplant, you have a much better chance of getting it if you're white. The number of non-white donors is so low in Britain that BME patients wait a year longer for kidney transplants.

People who need transplants often have painful, long-term health troubles that can make it tough to stay positive. But once you've had a transplant, you'll want to keep going: You need to live the life your donor wasn't able to.

That's right: 50.

The idea that medical staff won't work as hard to save someone's life if they know the patient is a registered organ donor terrifies potential donors, and makes potential recipients feel guilty and ashamed. It's not true, and is probably the most damaging myth about transplants.

In the months after your operation, whenever there's a discussion about who should answer the door or make a cup of tea, you can always win by using a whiny voice to say "But I've had a transplant!"

New UK figures show that 429 people died last year waiting for a transplant. Even worse, the number of donors has dropped.

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