A kidney as a gift for a new life

Photo By Pascal Huot
Then he was suffering from a problem of renal dysfunction since his childhood, Jean-Christophe Nicolas, 35 years old, father of two children, bites today in the life to the fullest after receiving a kidney from his father (in a mortise), at the age of 17 years.

Valerie Bidégaré

Saturday, January 6, 2018 00:00

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Saturday, January 6, 2018 00:00

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Suffering from renal dysfunction, a man in Quebec claims to have received a “second life” as a gift from his father who has donated one of his kidneys.

“This created with my father, a relationship that I never would have had if this situation had not occurred. It has allowed me to actually live, ” says Jean-Christophe Nicolas.

The man, 35-year-old has received a diagnosis of renal dysfunction at the age of 11 months. His childhood was tinged with urinary tract infections, and repetition of hemodialysis treatments prior to a first transplant becomes inevitable, at the age of 13 years.

“My kidneys were not working well enough for me to have a normal life. I could not more nothing to plan, nothing to do because two to three nights a week, I was on hemodialysis, ” says Mr Nicholas.

However, after the renal transplant, Mr. Nicolas received a diagnosis of ” chronic rejection “. As a teenager, he must return the hemodialysis before her parents do not volunteer to give him a kidney. “It is my father who was the most compatible. I received one of his kidneys in 1999, at the age of 17 years, ” recalls he.

Not all of them have his chance, because a quarantine of people die each year in the province waiting for an organ donation, according to Transplant Québec (see another text).

Photo Jean-François Desgagnés

Jean-Christophe Nicolas and his father.

“Extraordinary Moment “

“The surgery is an extraordinary time, but in another sense, I remember well the face of my mother, who saw from her son and her husband on the operating table at the same time,” says Mr. Nicolas.

“There is always a risk. I will always remember the time where the two stretchers entered the one next to the other and when I shook the hand of my father, not knowing how it happen. This moment will remain in my memory forever. It is without doubt the most beautiful gift that a parent can do to his child. “

A success

The operation was a success, according to Jean-Christophe, who has pointed out the “maturity of his kidney” on October 22 of last year, when it has received it is now 18 years old. “I will be eternally grateful and, every year, we celebrate it in a different way,” says the one who thanked his father for him to have the gift of a ” second life “.

“I can now travel, to plan, to have projects for the future, not be always in the stresses in not knowing what will happen to me. I can do normal activities without too to ask me questions, be a little more free, yes. It’s like a second chance, a second life, ” shares the father of two children, which supports be aware, however, that a risk of rejection hovers constantly above his head.

Two brothers die while waiting for a heart

Photo by Stéphane Bouchard, special collaboration

With heart disease genetic, Barry and Gerald Paradis died in 2005 and 2011, while they were waiting for a heart transplant. Their sister, Diane Paradis, who was suffering from the same disease, on the other hand, were grafted in 2012.

Two brothers from the region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean with heart disease are genetic dead six years apart in the waiting a transplant.

“This is unfair. This is terrible, ” says Diane Paradis, the sister of the deceased, Barry and Gerald.

These three members of a family of ten children who have inherited a heart disease genetic which their father was reached, the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Another of their brother suffered severely before dying at the age of 9 years.

“It is an anomaly of the left ventricle thickens and continues to thicken over the years, to make our heart non-functional. It is deadly, ” says the lady who has received a heart transplant in January 2012, nine months after having been placed on the waiting list.

The dead in the hope

His brothers are both deceased while they were in the fifties. The disease has attacked their hearts to such an extent that they have been forced to implement each of them a mechanical heart to support the poor functioning, while appearing on the waiting list. Yvan Paradis wished his heart transplant for over a year when he received his mechanical heart in 2005, before dying in June of the same year.

“It had to Roberval and had brought to Quebec in the hope of having a heart. It was a lot of hope of being grafted in and we lost all our hopes. We found it very difficult “, sharing her sister. “His daughter Julie received a heart transplant 15 years ago, because of the same disease. “

As for Gerald, he was on the waiting list for over two years before we implanted a mechanical heart, in the summer of 2011. He died a month later.

“I, myself, was awaiting a transplant when he died,” reveals Ms. Paradis, who was then in fear of suffering the same fate as his brothers. “Oh yes ! Especially when my brother died in 2011. I was afraid to go there because that, when they put me on the waiting list, I had a few years of life expectancy. “

Against all odds, Diane Paradise, received a call, in 2012, that would change the course of his life, while a heart was reserved.

A “hero discreet” gave a dozen bodies

Photo courtesy

Nancy Boies says it is proud of the gesture by his brother Governed.

A forty-something woman who died suddenly following a cerebral vascular accident in 2011 has become a “hero discreet” in the eyes of his sister with the gift that he made of several organs and tissues.

“A lot of lives continues in this death-there and it, it has no price,” says Nancy Boies. “I admire my brother who is now a hero to be discreet. “

Struck by a STROKE

One Friday in April 2011, Governed Boies, La Malbaie, has been struck down by a STROKE. The family of man, at the age of 43 years, has decided to “unplug” the next day.

“He had signed his organ donor card. It was not difficult to convince the rest of the family because the other members were for it, ” says Ms. Boies.

After the death of Mr. Boies confirmed, his body has been “artificially kept alive” in order to preserve the organs. According to the sister of the deceased, the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas, corneas, bone and skin were collected and donated.

“On Sunday morning, we received a call from Transplant Québec is telling us that four people had been transplanted. This is not a resurrection, but there’s something tangible after, ” Ms. Boies.

News of a receiver

Indeed, nearly a year after the death of Mr. Boies, his family received a letter from Transplant Québec as the recipient of his lungs wanted to contact. “It was crying. It’s like getting news of your brother. He said that it was a perfect match […] that he had waited almost two years, ” Mrs. Boies.

Since then, she has signed her card, and is involved in the Challenge life Chain to raise awareness for organ donation.

She argues that it is important not only to sign but also to share his or her intentions to friends and family who will have to make a decision for the deceased.

Transplant Québec wishes to two times more organ donors

Transplant Québec wishes to double the number of organ donors so people die waiting for a transplant.

Quebec has between 160 and 170 donors per year, according to Dr. Matthew Weiss, the medical director for organ donation at Transplant Québec, who believes “firmly” that the province has the potential to be “as strong” as Spain, which lists nearly 300 annually.

The increase in the annual number of donors would reduce the deaths of people awaiting a transplant. If the patients on the list decreased one-third since 2011, from 1264 to 841, forty are dead in the hold, annually, over the past 4 years, or about one in 20.

“It remains a matter of concern,” notes the expert. According to the latter, only 1% of deaths that occur in hospitals become ” potential donors “.

In order to achieve its objectives, the organization is to put in place a database that will provide the “performance indicators” of hospitals to target areas where the rates of identification, referral and consent could be straightened out.

Open door to the gift pediatric

Canadian blood services opens the door for organ donation in pediatric after headed a project led by experts who have determined the canadian guidelines supporting this practice.

“There will be more organs transplanted, so it is a benefit to those who are waiting,” says the medical director for organ donation at Transplant Québec, Matthew Weiss.

The expert has led the team that developed the canadian guidelines on the donation of organs after cardiac death in the paediatric environment, which was hitherto impossible.

“I had a family that wanted to do this type of organ donation so that their child would succumb to the disease, but it was not possible in 2013,” says Dr. Weiss, who has had to refuse. “We didn’t have the resources nor the expertise necessary to support donation after death according to the criteria of the circulatory system in pediatrics. “

Following this sad event, Dr. Weiss has worked with 32 experts to draw up recommendations to make this type of donation available to the children of Canada.

“I wish this is incorporated in the practice of Transplant Quebec as in other provinces, and hospitals,” he says.

Organ donation

2016

• 841 people waiting
• 40 deaths during the waiting
• 480 people are transplanted

2015

• 856 people waiting
• 43 death during the waiting
• 507 people transplanted

2014

• 993 people waiting
• 39 deaths during the waiting
• 442 people transplanted

The body is the most rare: the heart

The body is the most easy to be collected and the most in demand: the kidneys

Donor-aged: 88 years old

Donor the youngest: 48 hours of life