CHENNAI: As the saying goes - 'When life throws you curveballs, hit them right out of the park.'
No one does this better than former cricketer and two-time kidney transplant survivor Sumeer Kumar who has beaten the odds again to participate in the World Transplant Games 2023 to be held in Perth, Australia.
He is the only participant from Tamil Nadu at the games to be held from April 15 to 31. Apollo Hospitals has sponsored him for the games and honoured him at an event on Tuesday for being an inspiration to the transplant community.
Sumeer Kumar was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease at the peak of his career. He had two kidney transplants in 2015 and in 2019 after the failure of the first.
He had two aortic dissections and suffered from a paralytic stroke during the pandemic. Sumeer set the record for being the first person in India to run a 10 km marathon within 100 days of a transplant in 2020.
Sumeer said, "I was taking a lot of painkillers as a cricketer and was constantly dehydrated. When I could not continue with my career, I decided to become a wellness consultant."
Sumeer is set to play badminton in the singles and doubles category and tennis in doubles at the games.
"I want people to see that even after transplants one can achieve everything they dream of,"he said.
"Cricket has taught me there are no certainties in life. You learn to take your wins and losses graciously. I was depressed at various stages of the dialysis. But that is also part of the journey."
Sumeer also spoke about his support system, "I had disconnected from the world when I got diagnosed. I was fighting for my life and all I could see was the ugly in the world. But when I was down, strangers reached out and supported me. When I look at them, I want to fight harder."
Dr Venkatesh Rajkumar, nephrologist at Apollo Hospitals, said, "Sumeer is proof that patients need not fear transplants from cadavers and that one can live a good quality of life even after decades of dialysis."
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