Edmonton man takes to social media in hopes of finding liver donor

An Edmonton man desperately needs a life-saving operation and is taking his fight for his life to social media.

Dano Drummond, 36, is a husband and father of two who is in the end stage of a rare liver disease called primary schlerosing cholangitis, or PSC.

He was first diagnosed with the disease in 2007, while playing soccer at university.

This past year, he began experiencing advanced symptoms and after consulting doctors, they determined he would need a liver transplant.

While Drummond is on the waitlist for a deceased person’s liver, it is possible to do a transplant from a living donor. A healthy person can donate up to 67 per cent of their liver, which will naturally regenerate, he said. So, he’s taken to social media to share his message in hopes of finding a living donor sooner.

“You’re still asking someone that’s living their life… to go through unnecessary surgery and take out one of their major organs, right, just to save your life,” Drummond said.

“When you think of something of that magnitude, it becomes very emotional and you get lost for words for the number of people that are interested or willing to potentially get tested or step up and do such a thing.”

This living donor route is the one Drummond’s friend, Daniel Ferguson took by donating a portion of his liver to his brother Jonathan, who needed a transplant two years ago.

Daniel donated the entire right lobe of his liver, and it’s mostly grown back since the surgery.

It’s not a light process to be a living donor, he said. The work-up involves weeks of physical and psychological testing and scans.

“You can have all the goodwill in the world, but if the veins and arteries and all the plumbing don’t quite match up, then you can be refused,” he said.

While Jonathan had a backup donor, his brother was the chosen one. The rehabilitation took months, but Daniel has no regrets.

“It’s one of the most meaningful things that I’ve ever done and ever could do,” he said.

As for Jonathan, this opportunity allowed him “to get married to the love of my life earlier this year, to have energy again, to have clarity of thought.

“I can’t tell you how incredible that is. To feel creative again. To just be alive. I will never take nothing for granted ever again,” Jonathan said.

Drummond has been looking into the option of using a living donor, and the brothers have been a strong support in his journey.

A handful of his family members are being tested to see if they’re a match, as well as at least “100 more” people, Drummond said.

“It gives me goosebumps, gives me chills because you have strangers out there that are saying I have a young family, career, this, that…this is my blood type, I wanna get tested – what do I do?”