Jennifer Haworth will always be grateful to her brother-in-law, Simon.

With kidney failure looming and no donor in sight, he offered his own.

“I had assumed that the donor had to be a blood relative, but it doesn’t,” the 37-year-old said. “A match is found through blood typing.

“It was a very surreal feeling to walk into the hospital with him at some ungodly hour of the morning. It was very emotional. All our family were there. They wheeled him into the operating room before me and I got to wave goodbye. That was hugely emotional, knowing he was giving me this amazing gift. Before, we were as close as in-laws can be, but this really brought us together.

“I always wanted to do something to give back after that.”

She debated for four years, unsure what to do. Should she make a donation somewhere? Should she volunteer?

“Now, I think I just wasn’t ready,” she said.

In February, she attended Pecha Kucha, a regular community event where people speak on a range of topics.

“It was so inspiring that I wanted to share my own story,” the lawyer said.

She took part in May, aiming to inspire and highlight the importance of organ donation.

“I have a rare autoimmune disease called granulomatosis with polyangiitis. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I think I probably started experiencing symptoms in 2005 when I came back to Bermuda from university. I was constantly getting sinus infections and colds.”

The disorder causes inflammation in the sinuses, lungs, blood vessels and kidneys.

It wasn’t until years later, in the spring of 2014, that she really grew concerned. Her foot started to swell.

“My doctor thought it might be cellulitis, and I had a little infection,” Mrs Haworth said. “She put me on antibiotics.”

Then the other foot swelled.

She started getting breathless doing simple things. She also had a funny taste in her mouth and was constantly cold, despite it being August.

Her doctor scheduled a blood test.

“An hour later I got a call telling me to drop everything and go to the Emergency Room.”

Doctors at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital thought she was in kidney failure and sent her to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She still gets emotional remembering how she never got to say goodbye to her daughter Katherine, who was 4 at the time.

“I had to speak to her on the phone and try not to scare the daylights out of her,” Mrs Haworth said. It was quite hard on her to have her parents go away so unexpectedly for two weeks.”

In Boston, her kidney failure was confirmed and she learnt she had granulomatosis.

“It was very scary to be faced with this,” Mrs Haworth said. “I thought when I left Bermuda that I might never come back. It was one of the most horrible experiences, in a way, but it was such a relief to know what was going on.”

Doctors hoped to get her a kidney transplant before she needed dialysis, but things didn’t work out that way.

A month later, she was still waiting. Her feet swelled even more.

“They were the size of elephant feet,” she said. “It was obvious I wasn’t going to make it without dialysis. So I went on it for six months, until the transplant.”

In the meantime, her friends and family were all tested to see if they might be a match.

“I still remember getting an e-mail from [Simon],” she said. “It said: I am an O too!

“He was the best man at our wedding, but I never imagined he’d one day give me a kidney.”

The transplant was carried out on April 30, 2015.

The two came through the transplant with flying colours, and Mrs Haworth spent seven weeks in Boston, recovering.

Seven months after diagnosis, she was back at work at MJM Barristers & Attorneys.

“I was more emotional after the surgery than during it,” she said. “I realised that I didn’t just have to heal from the surgery, I also had to heal from the trauma of everything. The experience wasn’t all flowers and smiles; it was very difficult to go through.”

She needs to take 15 different pills daily to stop her body from rejecting the kidney, and fight her disease.

“Being in the position where you thought you might not get to come home or share your child’s next birthday, really puts things in perspective,” she said. “I have a much greater sense of my own health. I am a lot more in touch with my own body, and when I feel unwell I know it is time to rest or seek a doctor. I trust my instincts a lot more.”

She urges people to talk about organ donation with their families.

“It is so important for individuals to consider whether they are willing,” she said. “If they are, they should notify their primary care physicians and ensure that the proper steps are taken to notify the hospital. It is not something that you want your family members to have to decide for you if something happens to you.

“You want to have made the decision in advance, not only to alleviate the pressure of such a decision on your family but, more importantly, so that swift steps can be taken to save the lives of others with your donation. Of course, I was lucky and found a living donor. Not everyone is that lucky.”