Bear Bradshaw, aged 7, from Staffordshire was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease in January 2022.

Bear began to attend Alderhey Hospital in Liverpool to undertake haemodialysis treatment three times a week and then changed over to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for haemodialysis treatment.

“Bear found haemodialysis very hard at first but it became a normality for him after a couple of months, he started to bloom and loved to tell you all about his haemodialysis (washing) machine.”

On Friday 6^th January 2023 at 3.25am Bear’s parents got the transplant ‘call’.

“It was such an emotional day for us when we look back at the morning of the phone call with the hospital advising us that there was a kidney waiting for Bear. He has all of the support from his family, as well as his loving two brothers and two sisters.

After the kidney transplant operation Bear has been doing amazing with his recovery, he is now back to his old bouncy self and is loving life, he can’t wait for what the future holds.



Being a parent, I feel over joyed as a mum and the feeling of seeing your little boy being yourself is all that you want to see. Now that Bear has had his transplant, it has opened up normal opportunities for him, it’s the small things that bring joy and light into your lives, he can be a kid again and not have to have everyday planned from what he does to what he eats and drinks.

We will be taking each day as It comes. At the moment he really is an ambitious little kid and currently wants to be a ‘kidney doctor’ or policeman! We are looking forward to this quality time with him whilst he recovers, seeing family and spending time together catching up with things Bear has missed out on.

We will hopefully be going on holiday soon to the sea and Bear will be able to splash in the sea and sand without having any worries about getting wet.

The support that we have received as a family from the National Kidney Federation has been a great support network to have whenever you need help. To help support the work the National Kidney Federation do for kidney patients like Bear, we recently did a 24-hour games event at the local games shop Geek Retreat and helped to raise awareness on kidney disease. The amount of support we received from family, friends and Liverpool and Birmingham Children’s hospitals have been great, we can’t be thankful enough to have raised over an incredible £300.00 in aid of the charity.

As well as the 24-hour fundraiser we set up, we regularly visit the Geek Retreat games shop, twice a week when we are able to go down, to raise awareness around chronic kidney disease and collect various games for children to donate to the Liverpool Children’s Hospital and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

The National Kidney Federation have supported us from the very beginning of Bear’s kidney journey back in early January 2022 up to where we are now. They have always helped us with any questions we have had and have always offered their support wherever they are able. Thank you to the National Kidney Federation for becoming a big part of Bear’s journey, we can’t thank you enough for all that you have done for us.”


(Pictures from the Geek Retreat at the 24 hour fundraiser event)