A TREGARON man who received a kidney transplant from his mum just two years ago, has scooped a host of medals at the Westfield Health British Transplant Games.

After competing at the British Transplant Games in 2017 and the European Transplant Games in Sardinia this year, Lewis Evans has continued to train hard and won a gold medal in 100m, 200m, a silver in the 4x100m relay, discus and javelin and a bronze medal in 4x50K swimming relay the first time he’s ever competed as a swimmer.

Three years ago Lewis, who is now 25, started to feel sick, but brushed it off as food poisoning. However he later found out he was suffering from chronic kidney disease and needed a transplant.

Luckily, his mother and sister were both matches.

His mum didn’t want both her children in hospital, so decided to donate her kidney and in January 2017, after 16 months on the transplant list, Lewis underwent a full kidney transplant.

Lewis had always been athletic and as he waited for a transplant he underwent dialysis three times a week but wanted to add value to his life again. After Googl-ing his condition, he found out about the Transplant Games and started training at National Indoor Athletics Centre in Cardiff.

He said: “At first I was in hospital solidly for a month, then once I was discharged, I was having dialysis three times a week. That’s all my life consisted of. I’d wake up, wait for dialysis, have dialysis and then recover from dialysis.

“Focusing on competing in the games literally gave me a new lease of life. I had to be careful after my operation limiting my training sessions and the weights I was using, but I really enjoyed overtaking people on the running track who are lucky enough to have two kidneys!”

Lewis added: “I was so emotional winning all these medals, especially the 100 metres sprint as that was the big one."

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