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Five years in the making

FIVE years after the passing of her husband due to kidney failure, Poovie Padayachee is finally ready to release the book on her late partner in a fitting contribution to organ donor awareness.

With the month of August earmarked as Organ Donor Month and Women’s Month, Padayachee has decided to release a book on her husband, who was a recipient of an organ and one that used that second chance as an opportunity to strive and be the voice of organ donation, said Padayachee.

“He never used his illness as an excuse but saw it as an opportunity to strive and be the voice of organ donation and the success thereof,” said Padayachee.

Being diagnosed with renal failure at 27, beginning haemodialysis at 30 and then receiving a kidney transplant at 32, Padayachee’s husband was given 10 years to live but proved all the doctors wrong and lasted for 21 years. He died aged 53 in 2013.

“He lived by the motto: Whatever the mind can perceive, the body can achieve.

“In spite of him experiencing first renal disease, then cancer and various other complications, he rose above it and lived his life to the fullest, serving the community,” said Padayachee.

Padayachee said that the book titled On Borrowed Time, which took her five years to complete, is about the journey of a determined school teacher, Mr Gunston Padayachee, who conquered three dreaded diseases and persevered against all the odds to attain personal fulfilment, represent his country and become an ambassador of repute.

“It took me five years to write and release this book. It was a story that had to be told.

“I hope to use this book to inspire and motivate others — especially those with life threatening diseases — to tell them that there is hope and you have to make conscious decisions to live your best life.

“You will achieve nothing if you wallow in self-pity. Gunston showed through his life experiences that anything is possible,” she said.

Padayachee acknowledged that the book is a remarkable story of a man’s determination and will to conquer adversity and to live true to Napoleon Hill’s famous words:

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

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