Monday, October 27th 2014
Ten years ago on October 27th, 2014, our son, Grant, received a kidney transplant. He has Alport’s disease which he inherited from his mother’s side of the family. His kidneys had deteriorated some years before he received his ‘new’ kidney, indeed excessive tiredness in his early 20s showed the direction in which his health was moving. While he awaited his replacement organ he was on dialysis three times per week for many hours at a time. He managed to have these for about 5 hours per night, mostly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This meant that he could go to work in the morning. He is a carpenter on a variety of construction sites here on the North Shore. During that time and after his two and an half years of dialysis, his girlfriend, Vanessa, was amazingly supportive. Grant is now 37 years old and is doing well although he has to take a great deal of drugs to prevent rejection of his kidney which is not a match to his own. He will be on this regime for life.
Grant has many tales to tell about his time in hospitals and waiting for appointments. He chuckles when he remembers picking up a friend from hospital who had suffered a broken bone. His friend complained about the wait, the delay for X-rays, the length of time he had to wait for a doctor, the delay over a diagnosis and finally the relief when the plaster was applied. As he was driving his friend home and listening to his litany of complaints, Grant said nothing. Eventually there was silence, an awkward moment when his friend realised to whom he was talking. He said ruefully,
“You know, don’t you”.
Grant smiled and nodded. Oh aye, he knew.
The reason that Grant had to wait so long for his working kidney was that it was proving difficult to find a match. He could have gone anywhere in the country if they were able to find a suitable donor. The deal was that I would give up one of my kidneys anywhere in Canada at the same time as he was receiving one from somebody else. I could have ended up sunning myself in Iqaluit or looking out over a different ocean in Halifax. The breakthrough came when research allowed for a recipient to receive an unmatched kidney. Thus Grant is walking around with a kidney which was 62 years old at the time. That would be one of mine. “Twould have been much easier on him if the organ had been a perfect match. But there we were and here we are.
None of us can predict how we are going to respond to periods of physical and mental stress. We can prepare for a crisis but come the crunch there are a variety of directions in which we can go. I was quite happy to be me on October 27th,, 2014. Much better to be me than Irene. She had to watch while her husband went under the knife at 9.00 a.m. and her son did the same at 12 noon. I remember waking up to her concerned face and asking her whether Grant was in for his operation yet. She explained that the surgeon had gone for lunch. Gone for lunch! Of course he had. This was a normal day at the office for him, for us it was a momentous occasion. I remember asking who was looking after our kidney whilst Dr. Christopher Nguan was having his cheese sandwich. I was concerned that he might need a post-prandial nap! Of course he didn’t, the surgeon looked like he was 16 years old, just like teachers do to me now! Grant and I ended up in the next room at Vancouver General Hospital. The operation was on a Monday and I was out at a pizza place with Irene on the Friday night whilst Grant was still in hospital.
My wife, Irene, too has kidney disease but not yet in need of a transplant. Our daughter, Alison, is thankfully free of it to the extent that she offered to donate to Grant but was not allowed so to do. Both of the women in our family are extremely determined. They are careful what they eat and battle hardened to keep themselves physically fit. I am a bit of a sloth, could do with losing some weight and prefer to lift a book rather than a paint brush.
Grant is Manichean. He doesn’t know what that means but that’s what he is. There aren’t many shades of grey in our son’s thinking but there is white and, very definitely, black. If there is a problem, then there has to be a solution otherwise he is walking away from it. And most of the time it cannot be nuanced but has to be seen and fixed. If he finds attitude at work or play, then he will give attitude back. On the other hand, when he pulls up in his truck at a red light and out of the blue a little old lady, a complete stranger, opens his passenger side door and demands a lift, he is surprised and dumbfounded but also amused and happy to oblige. He did not, however, allow her to put the cake she was carrying on the back seat because there sat Frank the dog who would not have respected its privacy. Grant is generally helpful and kind. When a young man tripped and spilt his coffee at Tim Hortons recently he bought him another one. But when it comes to work he is not impressed when smoke breaks are taken; when jobs that should take half a day, take two; when initiative is not shown. But when his company gets a gem of a hard worker, he shows great respect and will bend over backwards to help keep him to the extent of giving up some of his weekend to help the guy move apartments. His sister departed for the UK seeking work in her chosen profession. She has been there for 8 years, latterly as Copyright Manager at the British Library in London, the biggest library in the world. Grant is immensely proud of Alison.
So here Irene and I sit in North Vancouver. We are situated a smidge north of our three score years and ten, I being 72 years of age and Irene, one year older. We are both retired and happily so. We both fill our days. We look back on the challenges that our adult children have faced in their lives and there have been some that we and they could have done without. But we are both philosophical and phlegmatic (Possibly many other ‘ph’ for ‘f’ words that are out there, hmm maybe not ‘phased’!), but we are also grateful for so much. Our children are not at war; they can speak freely; they have jobs that they love; our daughter does not live in Afghanistan. Nobody escapes without challenges but it is what we do with them that matters. I cannot remember the blur of the years when our son was so sick but I know that I was functioning on something short of the full deal, always assuming, Dear Reader, I ever had the full deal in the first place. For example, after the kidney donation I was presented with a blanket as gratitude from the Kidney Foundation. It took me by surprise to discover that we had been assigned a social worker as well as a blanket. In hindsight it seemed the right thing to do. She seemed like a nice person and wise too. Her wisdom showed when she left us to manage on our own.
Neither Irene and I think that our children are exceptions. That is always, always the role of others to judge. And this, Dear Reader, is more than a bit of a self-indulgent blog for which I apologise, but I could not let this milestone pass without some comment.
But, Dear Friends, there is a message out there for people in government and it is this. Citizens should be asked to opt out of organ transplants rather than to opt in. There are some countries in the world, notably Wales, whereby if you are a victim of a car accident your organs will be taken unless you have signed a form to the contrary. I was always at fault in that I kept intending to sign up to have mine harvested after my death but it was years before I did something about it.
I refer back again to one of Grant’s kidney tales. He used to meet the same crowd when he was hooked up for dialysis. He remembers one older lady who had been waiting years for a new kidney. There was an accident on the sea-to-sky highway and three UBC students were sadly killed. Suddenly Grant’s acquaintance was no longer there. The speculation doing the rounds of the dialysis centre was that she had received a new kidney from one of these young unfortunates. To me, Dear Reader, this is tragic but joyful.
Finally, Friends, there is much criticism of our public health system and it is true we need more medical professionals, but the care that has been taken over the years for our kidney-beset family where three of us function on two and a half kidneys rather than six, has been outstanding. I still have an annual check up and, of course, my wife and son are much more frequent visitors to the nephrologist. We cannot say enough good things about our health service.
Now all that needs to be done is to persuade Baskin-Robbins to make an ice cream cake in the shape of a kidney to help us to celebrate the anniversary. Och yes, as you can see with the featured picture, Baskin-Robbins came through.
Thanks for reading.
Alports disease affects 1 in 5000—10,000 children. It can affect the eyes and ears (although thankfully not in Grant’s case) but lack of energy and blood in the urine are common.
