Sometimes as a journalist a story really tugs at your heart-strings.
I know it shouldn’t, because we’re supposed to be impartial and all, but I’m afraid we’re also very human.
You can never tell which story it will be, it can often catch you unawares.
For me, Sione Vaiomo'unga and his young family's plight is the latest one of THOSE stories for me .
It seems a cruel reminder of the fragility of his life that Sione Vaiomo'unga’s view out of his tiny one room apartment, which he shares with his wife and two kids in a rougher part of northern Romania is over a graveyard.
He’s only too aware that he’s only alive due to modern day machinery - machinery which his home nation Tonga doesn’t have.
Sione Vaiomo'unga, who played rugby for Tonga, came to Romania five years ago with dreams of playing rugby in Europe.
He didn’t even know where Romania was, his contract was on an A4 piece of paper, but to him it didn’t matter, it was his ticket to the big time.
His first season with the Baia Mare rugby club was going well until in late 2014 a blood nose stopped those dreams in their tracks.
That blood nose was the start of his diagnosis of kidney failure. He spent 3 months in hospital, and since then he’s been going back several times a week for dialysis. Those machines are keeping him alive.
The most tragic part of this story however is that he’s effectively trapped in Eastern Europe’s Romania (where it can get to -20 degrees in winter), as his tropical island home of Tonga doesn’t have the dialysis facilities to keep him alive. It’s too expensive.
And awkwardly the chance of finding a match for a kidney donor in Romania isn’t that high due to his Pacific Island heritage and A+ blood type which is rare in this neck of the woods.
To add insult to injury the doctors have put a temporary hold on kidney transplants due to resources and a reshuffle.
It gets worse… His visa expires next month and while it appears Romania will extend his visa for another year on compassionate grounds, his visa doesn’t allow him to work. This means he relies on foodbanks and handouts from friends and family.
But what would drive most people into a deep depression, hasn’t for Sione.
You see, he’s got a lot to live for. His partner and eldest son joined him nearly 2 years ago in Romania, (he hadn’t even met his son until this point as he’d been unable to return home to Tonga due to his health), since then they’ve got married and had another son.
By the way – they’re two of the cutest and most well behaved boys I’ve ever met.
He has nothing but praise for his Romanian medical team, and for the country he says is forking out around $800 a week to keep him alive. He doesn’t moan about his situation. In fact he’s grateful he discovered his health crisis here, he says if it had happened in Tonga “I’d be dead by now”.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s stuck between a rock and hard place.
You can’t help but notice his bulging sores on his arms where the machines pump out his blood and pump it back in.
And as our day together wore on, you could see the excessive fatigue start to take over - just two tell-tale outward signs of his body’s internal daily fight.
When I ask what he misses most about the homeland he hasn’t seen or visited in more than five years he doesn’t have to think.
“The weather, the food, and the family”… he then laughs and talks of his wish to eat “taro” again and then explains “Back at home, you can visit the neighbour if you want to… but here you can’t go to the neighbour you know..” I get what he means.
His tiny one room apartment is in a concrete-clad block typical of Eastern Europe. Neighbours keep their doors shut. “It’s very far from home”.
But his solution… that’s where it’s tricky. Ideally he’d get a donated kidney, return to Tonga and live happily ever after… but as I explained, that isn’t exactly easy. His parents have both offered to donate one of their kidneys but they both have diabetes so that rules them out.
His wife has offered one of hers, but if something went wrong, it could leave their children in a dire situation so he’s said no for now.
He’d love to move to either the USA or New Zealand to be closer to family while receiving dialysis treatment and waiting for a donor. (In New Zealand he’d also be closer to a PacificIsland population where a donor match might be easier to find).
But in the USA he wouldn’t have free healthcare, so that pretty much rules out that option, and New Zealand has already said no once.
There’s a waiting list and also costs involved even if he did get a visa down the track.
I get that a Pacific Island nation has to prioritise its health budget. I also get that New Zealand has to prioritise its own people’s health needs. But that doesn’t leave Sione in a great position.
The Pacific Rugby Player’s Welfare, an organisation set up to support Pacific Island rugby players in Europe is doing its best for the family.
Head former Samoa Rugby international Daniel Leo has visited, and set up a fundraising page which has raised around $55,000.
Through that page, complete strangers have offered to donate their kidneys. Sione Vaiomo'unga says the offers have made him so “emotional that some people still want to help, even if we don’t know eachother”.
Hopes are now pinned on testing whether these offers are serious and even feasible. That money will help pay for some of those tests.
The welfare group also wants more research into whether Pacific Island sports men and women are more susceptible to kidney disease. It’s the same disease which claimed the lives of former All Blacks Jonah Lomu, and Sione Lauaki.
Sione Vaiomo'unga knows the only reason it hasn’t claimed his life yet is due to Romania’s generosity.
It’s only human to want to empathise right? I think that’s why this story has affected me so. Being stranded so far away from home in a foreign land with no easy solution seems so unfair.
He and his family are devout Mormons - they believe in miracles and that is exactly what he needs.
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