Lake Country resident Stanley Schibler was diagnosed with stage four liver disease just six weeks before he was supposed to marry the love of his life.
The successful sales executive waited three years for a liver transplant.
“I was going places and all of a sudden my life was put on hold,” he told Global Okanagan on Sunday.
Every time the phone rang, Schibler’s heart started pounding.
“As soon as the phone went off, you felt like your heart would go into a state,” he said.
In February 2014, the call he was waiting for finally came. Schibler underwent a successful organ transplant at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH).
Now Schibler and his wife Katrina are advocates for organ donation.
On Sunday, they dressed up in green to mark the first annual Green Shirt Day in honour of one of the Humboldt Broncos crash victims and to raise awareness about organ donation registration.
On April 7, 2018, Logan Boulet gave six others the gift of life by donating his organs – after the junior hockey team’s bus he was on collided with a semi-truck.
It’s inspired hundreds of thousands of people to sign up as organ donors – in what’s been dubbed the “Logan Boulet effect.”
“That family has turned around and taken that wish and turned it into an exponential event which is, I think, one of the greatest things that family could do is to make people aware,” Schibler said.
Kristina Schibler said she is forever grateful her husband was given a second chance.
“I think about that family, and how brave they are, and how grateful I am that you had a family like Logan’s family, that gave you the opportunity to keep living,” she said to her husband.
Last year saw a record-setting 502 lives saved through organ transplants in B.C., including 339 kidney transplants and 50 lung transplants.
But BC Transplant says there are more than 650 British Columbians still waiting for a transplant.
About a quarter of British Columbians are registered as organ donors.
The Schibler’s hope Boulet’s legacy will continue to build – so more lives will be saved.