EDMONTON – When Rick Carruthers made the decision last summer to donate his kidney to a stranger, he had no idea just how many lives he would end up changing.
It all started when the Spruce Grove resident heard a radio broadcast, in which a woman was speaking about her one per cent chance of finding a kidney donor because of her rare blood type. Carruthers was willing to be that donor for Michelle Robinson, but before he got the chance, doctors found another match for her from a deceased donor.
So the father-of-four decided to donate his kidney to someone else in need, setting off a life-saving domino effect.
“There was five people that got kidneys. So there was 10 surgeries,” Carruthers explains.
The recipients had loved ones who weren’t a match, but were still willing to donate if a match for their loved ones could be found. Carruthers’ three-hour surgery was the first in the pay-it-forward chain.
“Holding onto it and never using it, just seemed like not the proper thing to do. People do need them now,” he says. “Feels really good..to know that five people came off that list.”
Of the 4,500 people across Canada on an organ wait list, 80 per cent of them need a kidney.
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According to the Kidney Foundation, Alberta has the lowest organ donation rates in the country. This year in the province, there have been 12 living organ donations, three of which were “non-directed” (meaning the kidney was given to a person the donor doesn’t know) like in Carruthers’ situation.
“We’ve heard of paired exchanges that can save ten different lives, so that’s twenty people involved,” says Flavia Robles with the Kidney Foundation of Canada. “And not here in Canada, but in the U.S., there was a case that they did 70 people because one anonymous donor…came forward, triggered it off; seventy people were saved, it’s incredible.”
After the transplants, the kidney recipients no longer need dialysis. For Michelle Robinson – the woman who started it all – that means freedom.
“I have a life now,” one which is no longer dependent on her lengthy dialysis sessions three times a week, she says. “I’m actually living, I’m not just existing.”
Carruthers, meanwhile, will need up to eight weeks off following his surgery last month, which he admits was a bit more painful than he anticipated.
“People say ‘well would you do it again?’ And I say, ‘well it would be like asking a woman if she’d have another baby after she had a baby. Your answer would probably be ‘no’ right then and there.’ But after you’ve had time and you’re recovering and stuff, you would say ‘yes.'”
Aside from the pain, there are also some risks associated with donating a kidney, which include having a slightly increased risk of high blood pressure and kidney failure, as well as a chance of developing a disease of the remaining kidney or injuring it if you play contact sports.
The fact that Carruthers was able to put all that aside to save another person’s life makes him a “superhero” in the eyes of the Kidney Foundation’s Flavia Robles.
“We are in awe of his strength and his courage,” she says. “His compassion and his overall inspiration to really make a difference.”
There are currently about 200 people waiting for a kidney in the Edmonton area alone.
With files from Su-Ling Goh, Global News
Follow @TrishKozicka
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