A YORK renal patient who feared she would be on dialysis for the rest of her life has been given a date for a life-changing transplant.

Mandy Coles, 40, of Bellhouse Way, Foxwood, featured in the Evening Press last year when her 42-year-old brother, Andrew Boldison, offered her one of his kidneys.

But the operation could not go ahead until Mandy lost 20lbs - a task made more difficult because of her fluid-restricted diet.

Now the pair are due to go under the knife on October 15 at St James's Hospital, in Leeds, when one of Andrew's healthy kidneys will be transplanted into Mandy's lower abdomen.

Mandy's kidneys will not be removed during the operation.

Instead, she will receive the extra kidney to cleanse her blood of toxins, transforming the waste into urine.

The operation will free the mother-of-four from gruelling thrice-weekly dialysis sessions.

Mandy, who now weighs just over 14 stone, said her husband. Darryl. and daughters Alison, 22, Hayley, 19, Laura, 17 and Danielle, 15, helped her through.

She said: "I felt as if the operation was never going to happen, especially because losing the weight was so tough.

"I can't drink lots of water to fill me up, which is what a lot of people do to lose weight.

"I managed to lose the weight just by eating lettuce and cucumber really - I'm not even allowed to eat tomatoes.

"If I have more than a litre of fluid, including fluid from yoghurt, gravy and the juice of an apple, then my lungs fill up."

Mandy was diagnosed with a long-term kidney problem four years ago, and started dialysis last year.

She attends three four-hour dialysis sessions at York Hospital every week and takes a cocktail of medication.

Following the operation, it is expected that dialysis will no longer be necessary and medication will be limited to anti-rejection pills and steroids.

Mandy said: "I should benefit straight away. Andrew will be more poorly than me afterwards because he will have to adapt to just having one kidney instead of two."

Andrew, a married father-of-two, of Pottery Lane, said he had no doubts about donating the kidney and is expecting to live a normal life afterwards.

He said: "It was the waiting that was the worst part of it. I'm quite looking forward to it, just to get it over with and get back to a normal life."

Fact file:

A KIDNEY transplant operation is done under general anesthetic and usually takes between two and three hours

More than 1,500 kidney transplants are performed in the UK every year

The success rate for kidney transplants is excellent and higher than for other kinds of organ transplants

Patients must take a range of medication daily to prevent rejection of the new kidney.

Updated: 09:11 Saturday, October 02, 2004