Children’s book creator inspired by own kidney journey.

When designer Georgina Potier created the children’s book, My New Kidney, five years ago in collaboration with senior consultants and play specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital, she had no idea what a huge impact it would have.

The interactive book helps children awaiting a kidney transplant to understand what to expect throughout the process, encouraging them to draw, comment and write questions, so that they can go into surgery feeling less afraid.

Since then, with the help of funding and support from Kidney Research UK, Georgina’s not-for-profit company, Get Better Books, has produced bespoke versions of MyNewKidney for several hospitals across the UK.

Georgina, who is a kidney patient herself, was inspired to create the book after becoming concerned about the quality of information being given out to children awaiting a transplant.

“I went to Great Ormond Street Hospital and said I’d love to use my design skills to help children going through it,” says Georgina, who was just seven years old when she had her first transplant – a new right kidney.

“A book like My New Kidney would have been incredibly useful to the seven-year-old me,” she says. “One of the pages shows a bear lying down in bed with the lines you’ll wake up with after your operation on its body. That can be quite overwhelming, but if you’ve seen it in a book before you have it, it’s not as much of a shock.”

Georgina had a second transplant in 2013, 23 years after her first, but unfortunately is now awaiting transplant number three.

“They think that the second kidney had an underlying problem and three years ago my results started to creep up again,” she says. “So now I’m just waiting for that call.”

In the meantime, Georgina is ploughing her energies into Get Better Books, which she runs with illustrator Dr Jake Abrams, her former tutor at Kingston School of Art. Both have been overjoyed by its success; their work has so far helped around 3,500 children with different conditions.

“This has got so much bigger than we ever imagined,” says Georgina. “We’ve got ten projects on the go with Kidney Research UK and having their financial support is definitely a weight off our shoulders. Although the demand is very much there for the books, the problem is finding funding, so Kidney Research UK has been a huge help.

“To be helping all these children is so rewarding.”

For more information on Get Better Books, visit www.getbetterbooks.co.uk