Mixing and matching donor organs

By Jenna McMurray, Calgary Sun

The medical industry has found a way to cheat biology.

Despite being faced with a large number of people wait-listed for live organ transplants, doctors often have to turn away hopeful donors because they aren’t matches for their family members or friends.

“The need for organs is very high, but the supply was short because we were declining donors,” said Alberta Health Services surgeon Dr. Mauricio Monroy-Cuadros, medical director for the living donor program for the Southern Alberta transplant program.

However, instead of turning away donors unable to give organs to family members or friends, doctors have begun mixing and matching incompatible donors-recipient pairs to maximize the amount of transplants possible.

The process is possible through the Living Donor Paired Exchange, a national organ and tissue registry developed by Canadian Blood Services.

In a medical first for Calgary, Monroy-Cuadros and a surgical team participated in a domino kidney transplant, involving eight coordinated surgeries in three different provinces this past spring.

A donor from B.C. travelled to Calgary and donated a kidney to a local recipient while the Calgary’s patient’s partner travelled to Ontario and gave a kidney to a recipient there.

Meanwhile, the Ontario patient’s partner travelled to B.C. to donate a kidney to a patient whose partner gave a kidney to another B.C. patient.

All eight surgeries — totalling four transplants — were performed simultaneously, meaning four Canadians received life-saving organ donations the same day.

Travel costs for the Calgary donor were covered by the Living Organ and Donor Reimbursement Programs for Albertans, funded by the province.

Monroy-Cuadros said there are many benefits to domino surgeries including increasing the donor pool and reducing the time patients spend on a wait list.

“And because you are getting a living donor, the life expectancy is much longer than getting organs from deceased donors,” he added.

“And if you get better matches with donors, the risk for rejection is lower.”

About 40 transplants have happened nationwide since domino surgeries were first introduced in Canada last year, following in the footsteps of the U.S., which began the surgeries in 2006.

Monroy-Cuadros said as the process develops, doctors may look at sending just the organs to patients rather than the donors.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Breakthrough Research and Innovations to be presented at XXIII International Congress of The Transplantation Society

VANCOUVER, July 28 /CNW/ - The XXIII International Congress of The Transplantation Society is the premier educational and scientific event in the fields of organ and tissue donation and transplantation (OTDT). This conference, sponsored by The Transplantation Society (TTS), will take place August 15 to 19, 2010, featuring up to 5,000 attendees from around the world, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in downtown Vancouver, BC.

The International Congress of The Transplantation Society will include Nobel and Gairdner Laureates, keynote speakers, addresses by leading scientists, and specialist seminars with close to one thousand presentations covering crucial data in transplantation science and medicine. Controversial topics and important new research will be offered daily coupled with vital information evaluating Canada's organ donation and transplantation systems compared to the international community's progressive strategies.

"The XXIII International Congress promises to be an unprecedented meeting in terms of quality and content, and at the forefront of discovery and development in organ transplantation around the world," said Dr. Paul Keown, Chair of the Congress.

Notable presentations throughout the conference include:

Stem Cells - How far are we from growing our own?
• The wonderful potential of pluripotent stem cells in organ
  regeneration and transplantation - generating new organs using stem cells and gene technologies
• Advances in bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, and the
  exciting use of bone marrow cells to produce tolerance
New Technologies and Techniques - the impact they are having on Transplant Medicine
• Islet transplantation - the hope for many with diabetes
• Use of artificial hearts as a life saving bridge to transplantation
• Gene therapy is restoring damaged lungs for transplantation - how
  Canada is leading the world
• Investing in genome technologies is unraveling novel means of
  transplant rejection - identifying new targets for drug treatments
• The new field of composite tissue transplantation - how
  transplantation is replacing hands, faces and other tissues
• Patient selection for composite tissue transplantation - a cautious
  and demanding process
Expanding the Donor Pool to Meet the Need - How far can we push the barriers?
• Anonymous living organ donation - what's new?
• The rapid increase in systems to help people trade living donors in
  order to find a match - can it meet the need?
• Expanding living donor transplantation beyond just kidneys
• Using one liver to save more than one life - the benefits of split
  organ donor transplants
• Geographical and societal factors influencing access to
  transplantation in emerging and advanced countries

For more information about the XXIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society, please visit www.transplantation2010.org. For information on the Transplantation Society, visit www.tts.org. Visit www.transplantation2010.org/ScientificProgram.html for the complete conference program schedule.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Nurse had sex with heart transplant patient

A nurse had a passionate affair with a seriously ill married patient as he awaited heart and lung transplants at a Midland hospital.

Express & Star

Rebecca Bayliss, aged 29, of Walsall, was found guilty yesterday of having a sexual relationship with the man by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and could now be struck off.

She joked to a colleague that she could have sex with him by turning up his oxygen and giving him nebulisers.

The nurse began a relationship with the patient at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital.

The affair was discovered after the man, referred to only as Patient A and sufferring from cystic fibrosis, told a clinical psychologist.

Bayliss was called to a meeting by management in May 2008 and banned from seeing the patient, but she contacted him again.

Patient A later told investigators that he “could have done without the stress” and that the affair “certainly didn’t help my recovery”.

Mr Salim Hefejee, for the NMC, told the hearing that Bayliss, who did not attend, engaged in a “wholly unprofessional and unacceptable relationship”.

He said: “Patient A was vulnerable, suffering from a significant illness. The turmoil of the relationship had an adverse affect on him, causing stress and upset.”

Fellow nurse Laura Grant told the hearing that Bayliss had written on Facebook that she was excited, and told Mrs Grant that she was seeing someone other than her partner.

She told her a week later that the man was Patient A. Mrs Grant said: “We talked about how inappropriate it was, and I advised her to tell the management what was going on.”

Another co-worker, Laura Barlow, said of Bayliss: “She said that she had fallen in love. I was totally shocked.

Bayliss, who had worked for the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust since 2006, was found guilty of entering into a sexual relationship with a patient between February 2008 and May 2008.

An allegation of failing to inform her manager of the relationship and failing to maintain professional boundaries with the patient was also proved.

The panel will now decide whether Bayliss’s fitness to practice has been impaired. If they decide it has, she could be struck off from the profession.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Luke Maeding, 8, awaits double-lung transplant

Transplant will cost $75,000 more than his parent's health insurance will pay

Luke Maeding plays video games at home recently while nurse Tina Wida keeps track of his condition. The 8-year-old has an infusion site in his chest to get medication and constantly receives oxygen from nearby tanks.

Express-Times Photo / MATT SMITH

lehighvalleylive.com, Pennsylvania

Luke Maeding wants to do what other 8-year-olds do -- go to summer camp and play basketball.

But his body doesn't let him. Tubes tether the boy, who celebrates his ninth birthday Thursday, to a pair of silver canisters in the kitchen of his Upper Nazareth Township home. They're his lungs.

Luke suffered children's interstitial lung disease when he was born 14 weeks premature to a mother who abandoned him, and his body is outgrowing his stunted lungs. He needs a double-lung transplant that will cost $75,000 more than his parents' health insurance will pay.

Luke is one of six children in Glen and Heather Maeding's family. Three, including Luke, are adopted. A seventh sibling is due to be born in September. The Maedings met two of their adopted children while volunteering in Haiti.

And of course, there's nurse Tina Wida, who cares for Luke eight to 10 hours a day.

"His life is dictated by his medical routine," Heather Maeding said. "Sometimes he just gets tired and he tells me, 'I don’t want to do this anymore.'"

Learn about Luke's wait for a lifesaving call in Tony Nauroth's report: Double-lung-transplant candidate Luke Maeding, 8, battles disease in virtual reality and in the real world.

Click here to learn about fundraisers aiming to help the Maedings pay for Luke's lung transplant.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Hospitals start process on way to organ donation

In this article Christine Pizzuti has captured the essence of the organ donation process from the time a loved one is identified as a potential donor by hospital staff and the hard decision that families have to make by donating their loved ones organs and tissues. Once again we are reminded of the importance of talking to our families about our decision to become an organ donor.

By Christine Pizzuti FOR THE POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL

All hospitals are required to participate in a chain of procedures involving potential organ donors — from getting permission, to notifying a local organ procurement organization when opportunities arise.

"We deal with the donor and the family, and the process of making a decision to donate," said Jean Walsh, a trauma coordinator at Saint Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, a level 2 trauma center.

"Preparing the patient to donate is very emotionally exhausting, but gratifying at the same time. If you think about it, it's such a tragic thing that's occurred , but on the other hand, it's one of the most generous and gracious things a family can do is to take a tragedy and turn around and make a gift of life to other people, and to make other people's lives better because of it."

There is no one person designated to start the chain. Doctors and nurses recognize potential donors who will soon face brain or cardiac death.

Before approaching the family, there are several criteria a patient must be determined to meet. The hospital then calls the New York Organ Donor Network.

"You can never be wronged or criticized in making that call, because sometimes people look like they're moving in that direction," Walsh said.

Most donors are young adults who wind up in the intensive care unit, often as a result of car crashes or other incidents that caused brain trauma. Many patients have already made the decision to donate, whether it be a signature on their driver's license or through the Donate Life Registry.

Organ procurement can be difficult, especially if the family isn't ready to face the decision. Once the decision is made, the patient is brought to the operating room. Then a team of medical specialists converges on the hospital with equipment and coolers, and are gone as quickly as possible with kidneys, lungs, eyes and even skin and bone.

"It's very hard, because the families have to say good-bye. Then they say good-bye before the OR (operating room), and then again when the patient is pronounced (dead)," Walsh said. "But it is an unbelievable gift. It's hard to accept in the beginning, but sometimes it helps them to move on knowing they did something so generous."

She said things have changed in recent years in terms of organ transplant education, and as a result, some families are already prepared to make the decision.

"People, I find, are so educated about it now because of the publicity, and a lot of patient families will say off the bat, 'She wanted to be an an organ donor, I know she did,' " Walsh said.

But this is less common in pediatric cases, where parents just can't come to terms with such a procedure being performed on their child. "I think it's too overwhelming," she said.

"It's a very special gift. The reality is that when we're born, we're all going to die — and that's a journey we begin at birth," she said. "What a beautiful legacy to help someone live at that point where we no longer need our organs."

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan signs up as organ donor

Congratulations to President Zardari of Pakistan for taking a leadership role in advancing organ and tissue donation in Pakistan and his efforts to stamp out the buying and selling of organs and transplant tourism.

World Health Organization

Worldwide, approximately 100 900 solid organ transplants were performed in 2008 (based on information from the 104 countries in which 99% of the world’s organ transplants take place). Kidney transplants made up the majority of all transplants (69 300), followed by liver (5330), heart (5330) and lung (3330) transplants.

Islamabad -- President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan today signals top-level personal support for a new national organ transplantation service by signing an organ donor card to bequeath his organs upon his death. The signing will take place at a ceremony at Bilawal House, Karachi.

The new service is based on donations from deceased donors. It prohibits commercial transplantation and outlaws the organ trade.

“Pakistan has taken an important step in passing this new law to regulate organ transplantation, and is setting an excellent example to other countries,” said Dr Hussein A. Gezairy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “The commercialization of organ transplantation is unethical, inequitable and unhealthy – both for vendors and recipients.”

Kidney transplantation took off in Pakistan in the late 1980s. To begin with, most transplanted kidneys were donated by family members but by the late 1990s, the majority of kidneys were bought from individuals from villages located around major cities. By 2003, most kidney transplants were undertaken in private hospitals in the cities of Punjab.

In 2005 (the last year for which figures are available), 1500 commercial transplantations were conducted openly in Pakistan.

An article published online in the journal Clinical Transplantation on 6 July 2010 by a group of researchers from Skopje, Macedonia, describes 36 patients who travelled from the Balkans to buy kidneys in Pakistan. Following operations in Lahore and Rawalpindi, seven patients died, while many others suffered serious complications such as infected wounds, renal artery thrombosis, active hepatitis C, steroid diabetes and acute myocardial infarctions. [1]

Meanwhile, many people who have sold a kidney say that their health has suffered as a result, citing general overall weakness and an inability to work long hours.

Organ transplantation is the only viable treatment for a range of fatal and non-fatal diseases affecting the heart, liver or lungs. Although patients with terminal renal diseases can be treated through other renal replacement therapies (notably dialysis), kidney transplantation is generally accepted as the best treatment both for quality of life and cost effectiveness. Kidney transplantation is by far the most frequently carried out form of transplantation globally.

Worldwide, approximately 100 900 solid organ transplants were performed in 2008 (based on information from the 104 countries in which 99% of the world’s organ transplants take place). Kidney transplants made up the majority of all transplants (69 300), followed by liver (5330), heart (5330) and lung (3330) transplants.

Demand for organs outstrips supply in almost every country of the world. WHO estimates that less than one tenth of estimated global needs in organ transplantation are currently met. This results in offers of incentives for donation, profiteering and exploitation of the disadvantaged.

In 1987, the World Health Assembly noted that the commercialization of organ transplantation contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the spirit of the WHO Constitution. WHO subsequently developed a unified legal instrument to regulate transplantation, which led to the approval of a set of Guiding Principles at the World Health Assembly in 1991. The Guiding Principles emphasize voluntary donation and non-commercialization of human organs. In May 2010, the sixty-third World Health Assembly adopted a further resolution (WHA63.22) endorsing an updated set of Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation. The resolution highlights the social risks associated with trafficking in human materials, and the need for public support to stamp out the trade and increase donations from deceased donors.

Meanwhile, in March 2010, the Third Global Consultation on Organ Donation and Transplantation agreed to aim for self-sufficiency by scaling up preventive measures (such as healthy lifestyle campaigns) to reduce the numbers of people needing organ transplants, and to encourage people to do what President Zardari is doing today: demonstrating a commitment to the community by bequeathing his organs for use by others after his death. Ensuring adequate local supply of voluntarily donated organs is critical to eliminating commercial trade and “transplant tourism”.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Heart-lung transplant patient celebrates milestone with fundraising walk in Hawaii

Photo: Melissa Tait/Record staff

It's wonderful to see Dana Trude doing so well following her double-lung and heart transplant in December, 2006. I got to know her very well before and following her transplant and marveled at her determination and positive attitude to overcome the emotional and physical setbacks, such as organ rejection, she had to deal with. Since her transplant Dana has been a staunch advocate for organ and tissue donation and now with diabetes developing she's dealing with it by helping to raise money for the Diabetes Association.

By Johanna Weidner, Waterloo Region Record

KITCHENER, Ontario — Dec. 12 is a big day for Dana Trude.

That’s the day, nearly four years ago, when the Kitchener woman’s life was saved with a new heart and lungs.

This year, she’ll mark the anniversary by joining a fundraising walk for diabetes, which she likely developed as a complication of the transplant surgery and medication needed to stop her body from rejecting the organs.

“I thought, ‘What a better way to celebrate,’ ” Trude said.

After such a complicated transplant and the health problems that have followed, she knows it’s important to celebrate every milestone. Several patients who got lung transplants around the same time as Trude have not survived.

“I’ll settle for four because I don’t know if I’ll be around for five,” said Trude, who’s 49.

This December, she’ll be walking with Team Diabetes, a national fundraising program for the Canadian Diabetes Association that participates in events held in Canada and worldwide, in a 10 kilometer walking event in Hawaii.

A heart-lung transplant was Trude’s only hope when several serious conditions damaged her own organs, and put her life in jeopardy.

She was diagnosed as a young adult with a lung disorder that causes high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery. Years later, an aneurysm in her aorta was discovered, putting her at risk of a life-threatening rupture. And then she began suffering from an abnormal heart rhythm that hampered the organ’s ability to pump blood effectively.

Trude’s heart and lungs were failing her, and needed to be replaced soon.

Amazingly, the uncommon surgery at Toronto General Hospital took just five hours and Trude was back home in 11 days.

Trude thought she would enjoy a new life free of the health problems that had plagued her for half her life. She imagined walking and cycling with the two sons she had adopted with husband Sam Trude and his daughter.

Instead, she struggled with bouts of pneumonia and the threat of organ rejection in the months following surgery. Her anti-rejection medications, along with a host of other drugs including prednisone, are still closely monitored. Then she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, requiring medication.

“I was upset because it’s not something you want to hear,” Trude said. “And now I have a failing kidney.”

However, she has almost full lung capacity and was able to return to her job as a secretary about two years ago and become more active, including participating in several local fundraising walks. When she heard about the Dec. 12 walk for diabetes, Trude felt she had to join and set herself a $6,000 goal.

Far from tiring her out, a recent fundraising walk energized Trude.

“I felt like I could have walked all day.”

Find out more about Team Diabetes online at http://www.teamdiabetes.ca or call 1-800-226-8464. Pledges can be made to individual participants such as Trude.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

A change of heart changed her life

Jennifer Monteith had accepted living with a battery-powered heart — then she got an unexpected call. Photo: Lucas Oleniuk, Toronto Star

By Amy Dempsey Toronto Star

On the evening of Jan. 7, Jennifer Monteith decided to celebrate being alive.

“I decided to make myself a fabulous dinner,” she says. “I was at home and I felt like pork chops and mashed potatoes and green beans. And I’d been dying for a glass of wine.”

Monteith had spent more than a year and a half with a mechanical heart — a device attached to her heart’s left ventricle that is powered by a battery pack she carried around in a shoulder bag.

For most people who get one, the LVAD, or left ventricle assist device, is a bridge to a heart transplant. Few need them for longer than six months because a donor heart is usually found by then.

But Monteith was in a difficult situation; doctors had warned her that 98 per cent of all potential donor hearts wouldn’t work because of her unusually high number of antibodies that would cause her body to reject most of them.

“I’d just about given up and I’d settled for the fact that I have an LVAD and it was working good,” she says.

In her Bloor West Village home last January, Monteith prepared for what she calls a “fancy night.” She set the table, cranked the jazz and turned on her fireplace.

Then she got an unexpected call: “We have a heart for you, Jennifer.”

She called one of her sons, who heard the excitement in her voice and asked if she was having one of her fancy moments.

“I said ‘Yes I am. And it’s going to get even fancier.’”

Monteith smiles as she relays memories of her three-year heart journey, but then pauses as tears spill down her cheeks.

“This is taking me back,” she says, mopping her face with a cloth. She chuckles, shakes her head and continues.

Monteith, 57, doesn’t know for sure what weakened her heart, but two years ago she was diagnosed with advanced heart failure.

The irregular rhythm of her heart made sudden death a looming threat. Her doctors say she would have died waiting for a transplant without the LVAD.

More than half a million Canadians suffer from some form of heart disease and more than 50,000 a year are treated for advanced heart failure. Nearly 40 per cent of those patients die within the first year of diagnosis.

Monteith was one of the lucky ones, as just 90 patients have received a mechanical heart from the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre since 2001. The devices cost about $100,000 and are funded by private hospital donors and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Dr. Terrence Yau, the surgeon who performed Monteith’s transplant in January, says only a few mechanical heart users in the country had one as long as Monteith.

“We really never thought that we’d get her a heart,” he says.

But then, despite incredible odds, they found a match.

It is possible to live permanently with an LVAD, but Monteith says living with a battery-powered heart was not easy. She had to have a friend or family member with her at all times in case of an emergency and be home to recharge her battery pack every six to eight hours.

She says having to depend on others and ask for help was the hardest part. Monteith raised two boys on her own after her husband died in a car accident nearly 20 years ago and she takes pride in running her own business, a trade show support centre at Exhibition Place. One of her sons helped run the shop when she couldn’t.

The mechanical heart kept her alive, but it stripped her of her independence; the transplant gave Monteith her freedom back.

“I’m home by myself without doctors and machines,” she says. “I’m able to be on my own.”

More tears spill from her brown eyes. “God that is such an amazing thing.”

For the first few nights after she left the hospital in February, Monteith says she couldn’t sleep without the familiar buzz of the power unit that had kept blood pumping through her body for 20 months. It was replaced with a sound she wasn’t used to: the thump of her new heart.

“Can you imagine getting a new heart?” she says. “Somebody else giving you a heart and you are able to go out and have a second chance at life and carry on your dream?”

She laughs, wipes her face again and shakes her head.

“It’s just such a magical feeling. I look forward to my every day.”

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Checklist Will Revolutionize the Organ Donor Selection Process

I'm very pleased to publish this timely guest post by Alexis Bonari.

To date, one of the most difficult aspects of the organ donation procedure
is determining whether a person who is in a potentially irreversible coma
is an ideal candidate to be an organ donor. In a recent study presented
by the American Academy of Neurology, four tests can help make this
determination more accurate and easier. If these tests become standard
procedure, the number of organs available for donation would be dramatically increased.

From the time the heart stops beating, doctors have 60 minutes to remove
the donated organs from the patient’s body. For this reason, patients with
irreversible brain damage are only suitable organ donors if they are likely to pass away within 60 minutes of life support being removed. Until now, the only methods that can be used to test for donor candidacy would have required the patient to be taken off of the ventilator.

Now, doctors have determined that the following four factors are indicators of candidacy:

1. No corneal reflex.
   Doctors touch the cornea of the eye with a dampened tissue or cloth. If no reflexive muscle reaction occurs, there is a proven lack of corneal reflex.
2. No cough reflex.
   Noxious odors are introduced to the patient. A lack of coughing reflex is indicative of an advanced stage of brain death.
3. No motor response.
   The pain receptors of the hands and feet are tested to see if the autonomic nervous system responds.
4. High scores on the oxygenation index.
   A high score on the oxygenation scale indicates that the patient’s body isn’t metabolizing oxygen effectively.

Patients who exhibit these four symptoms have a 93% chance of dying within 60 minutes of the cession of life support. Doctors could then schedule an organ transplant ahead-of-time in these cases, eliminating some of the guesswork involved with the procedure.

The correlation is one to one: more available organs translates directly into more lives saved. As doctors learn more about the donation process, efforts will become more efficient.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, researching areas of online education. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Artificial Lung "Breathes" in Rats: Study

Reuters
July 16, 2010

From NursingLink

U.S. researchers have created a primitive artificial lung that rats used to breathe for several hours. The device may be a step toward the development of new organs grown from a patient's own cells, the researchers said on Tuesday.

The finding, reported online July 13th in Nature Medicine, is the second in a month from researchers seeking ways to regenerate lungs from ordinary cells.

In the latest study, Dr. Harald Ott and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston removed the cells from rat lungs to leave scaffolds with acellular vasculature, airways and alveoli.

Then they "seeded" the scaffolding with epithelial and endothelial cells to regenerate gas exchange tissue. Next, they simulated the physiologic environment of developing lung in a bioreactor.

By the fifth day, when perfused with blood and ventilated at physiologic pressures the scaffolds "generated gas exchange comparable to that of isolated native lungs," according to the authors.

When implanted in rats, they worked for up to six hours after extubation, although imperfectly.

The researchers said it may be possible to try the experiment with more embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells.

Last month, a team at Yale University in Connecticut implanted engineered lung tissue into rats that helped the animals breathe for two hours.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Organ shortage a concern in Canada

The Canadian Blood Services (CBS) was given a mandate by the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Deputy Ministers of Health (excluding Quebec) to develop - in consultation with stakeholders, the public, and the medical community - a recommendation for a new national system for Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation (OTDT). Canada is one of the only countries in the western world without a national, coordinated system for organ and tissue donation and transplantation (OTDT). I had an opportunity to speak with Kim Young who is quoted in this article as well as the entire board of directors of CBS and suggested to them that the best way to increase organ and tissue donation in Canada would be to start by establishing a national on-line registry.

By Lana Haight Leader-Post, Saskatchewan News Network

A lack of awareness is behind the continued shortage of human organs available for transplantation, says the head of the program in Saskatchewan.

"We've flat-lined for years and years and years in Canada," said Raylene Matlock, manager of the Saskatchewan Transplant Program, based at St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon.

In Saskatchewan, corneas and other types of tissue are retrieved more often than organs from people after they've died. In 2009, tissue was retrieved from 30 deceased donors. Typically, organs are retrieved from about 14 deceased donors each year, says Matlock.

At any one time, about 125 people in Saskatchewan are waiting for some kind of transplant.

While about 5,000 people die annually in Saskatchewan, not all have organs that would be suitable for transplanting, says Matlock.

"An ideal donor is somebody who's been healthy for most of their life and died of a catastrophic event to their brain. Now, a catastrophic event can include many things: an overdose, a trauma, a gunshot wound, a massive stroke or cerebral aneurysm," she said.

And even with suitable donors, not all tissue or all organs are retrieved. From the 14 donors in 2009, 13 livers, five hearts and 19 kidneys, including pairs, were among the organs made available for transplantation.

Matlock would like to see Saskatchewan's donation rate double to 28 deceased donors each year, but to accomplish that, people in the province need to start talking to their family and friends.

"If they have not talked to their family about what their wishes are, sometimes it makes it very difficult at this time for a family to decide what to do," said Matlock.

"Some people aren't comfortable with death, finality. And some aren't comfortable that we're keeping their loved one alive on machines. They have to be educated by us about brain death and what that actually means, that there is no blood flow to the brain. We do tests that confirm it. We do scans that confirm it."

Only the next-of-kin can provide legal consent for organs to be retrieved from someone who has died. A signed organ donor card or a sticker on a health card does not provide that consent for organ donation, says Matlock. Still, for those people who want the cards, they are available from the Saskatchewan Transplant Program offices in Regina at 766-6477 or Saskatoon at 655-5054.

Health-care workers also need to become more aware of their responsibility to encourage organ donation, says Kimberly Young, executive director of organs and tissues for Canadian Blood Services.

"No one would ever dream of not diagnosing an appendix, but often it happens that they don't diagnose the opportunity for organ donation. You would be held accountable if you missed diagnosing an appendix even if it was for someone who was 95 years old," said Young.

"We shouldn't leave it up to the person. We should have a system that says (organ donation) is the responsible and required diagnosis."

The Canadian Blood Services is drafting a document for the deputy ministers of health from the federal, provincial and territorial governments that will recommend ways to increase the rate of organs from deceased donors. Establishing a legally binding national electronic registry for people who want their organs retrieved after death could be one of the recommendations, says Young.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Canadian mother donates kidney to casual acquaintance

Thornhill, Ontario single mom of three teenagers donates kidney and now advocates for organ donation

Giving a gift for life. Kathy Laszlo (right) donated a kidney to Terri Quint last month. Ms Laszlo is back at work and feeling fine and wants everyone to consider donating to help others. Staff Photo/Steve Somerville

By Ken Zarzour yorkregion.com

Robyn Quint hung up the phone and turned to her husband.
“Kathy says we can have her kidney.”

“You’re joking,” Saul said, turning to her in shock.

“No, she’s serious. She says we can have it if we want it.”

And that’s how it went down — as casually as if Kathy Laszlo were offering her neighbor a cup of sugar.

The Quint family of Thornhill had struggled through a nightmarish few months.

Their developmentally disabled teenaged daughter, Terri, had experienced kidney failure and was attached to a home dialysis machine for eight hours a day, six days a week.

Robyn and Saul ran the machine at night; the parents did not sleep and their other children coped as best they could.

It would be like this for the rest of Terri’s life, doctors said, if they could not find a donor, and finding a match was proving impossible.

Despite their large and willing families, not one relative was eligible.

So, the offer from a casual acquaintance — who was herself a single mom of three teenagers, one of whom also had special needs — seemed like manna from heaven.

“My husband got on the phone and kept thanking her, over and over,” Ms Quint said.

“And then I told him, enough thanking, let’s get to work,” Ms Laszlo added with a laugh.

Now, just two weeks after the life-saving transplant, Ms Laszlo and Terri sit together on Ms Laszlo’s family room couch in Thornhill, looking the picture of health.

Ms Laszlo is back at work and her lifestyle back to normal, despite the missing kidney.
And while she makes the whole process sound like a piece of cake, it wasn’t exactly.

The first hurdle was persuading the hospital to schedule the surgery at the end of June when her disabled son would be taken care of in camp.

The second involved a battery of tests to ensure she was qualified to donate.

“I was extremely worried that, for some small reason, they would rule me out,” she said.
There were even mental health tests, “so now my kids can’t call me crazy anymore,” she said with a laugh.

“They said I’m sane and I’ve got the papers to prove it,” she added.

“Kathy has been unwavering,” Robyn Quint said looking to her friend with fondness.

Before they took their relationship to this whole new level, they were both simply carpooling moms whose disabled children took part in the same community activities.

The transplant was scheduled for Toronto General Hospital June 25.

Ms Laszlo rested in the pre-op room and marvelled to her teens that she felt so calm.

Trips to the dentist caused her more nerves than this.

After two hours, she awoke from the anaesthetic, the kidney removal complete.

“How’s Terri? And who won the game?” were her first words.

Brazil and Portugal were going head-to-head at the World Cup in South Africa.

It was a good game.

Ms Laszlo, who runs a charity called DANI, which helps find employment and runs social programs for young adults and teenagers with special needs, said she feels as if she has used Toronto General to give life twice — first, when she gave birth to her children, and now, she’s given life again.

It’s a little strange, knowing part of her body is working hard in this young girl’s, but Ms Laszlo feels no pain or after-effects.

It takes three days for one kidney to take over 75 per cent of the function of the missing kidney, she said adding 100 per cent function was not necessary.

“There’s a saying God gave us two kidneys to give one away,” she said.

“If it were my child, God forbid, I would move heaven and earth to find a donor to save him.”

Since then, Terri has been in great health and spirits and, while she can’t verbalize it, she seems aware that her friend’s mom has given her a very special gift.

And Ms Laszlo is telling everyone who will listen about her experience with living organ donation.

“It’s not like I’m waiting for a hero’s welcome,” she said. “I just want people to know how important it is to go on a donor list, even if it’s just to sign the donor card on your driver’s licence.”

She points to her next door neighbour’s cousin, waiting desperately for a donation and “getting sicker and sicker by the minute. There comes a time when you’re too sick to do it anymore. There’s a time limit.”

“People think it’s a life-changing experience to donate an organ, but I’m still able to live the same life, eat the same food, do the same exercise.

“It’s not such a big deal, physically speaking, a couple of weeks of your life, to give another person a chance at life.”

Notes: Living Donor Paired Exchange Programs have been established to match up donors with recipients who are of compatible blood types. For more info go to the following links:
Canada: Living Donor Paired Exchange Registry
United States: MatchingDonors.com

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

New York passes bill to allow on-line organ donor registry

Congratulations to the State of New York for implementing this Act that will help to dramatically improve organ and tissue donation. Go to New York Donor Network for more info. This brings to 47 the number of U.S. states that now have on-line donor registration and I've been told that the remaining three are in the process of doing so as well.

NEW YORK ORGAN DONOR NETWORK APPLAUDS GOVERNOR PATERSON’S SIGNING OF ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE ACT

Law Will Result in Drastically Increased Donor Registry Enrollments to Save Lives

New York, NY - July 8, 2010: Governor David Paterson today signed into law an electronic signature bill that will dramatically improve the organ donation process in New York. The law will allow New Yorkers to register online to become organ donors. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously on April 27 and the Senate on May 12. The Electronic Signature Act eliminates the need to download enrollment forms and mail them in.

The statement from Elaine Berg, President and CEO of the New York Organ Donor Network follows:

“This is an historic day for every New Yorker that is waiting for a lifesaving organ. For years, the New York Organ Donor Network has led the fight for an electronic signature. This bill is the key to streamlining the organ donation registration process; once implemented, its effect will be immediate, and will result in countless lives being saved.

“On behalf of the entire New York Organ Donor Network family, I applaud Governor Paterson for signing this bill into law, and giving New Yorkers the tools they need to step up and sign the donor registry in record numbers.

“We thank Senator Duane, Assemblymen Gottfried and Brodsky, and all of the bill’s cosponsors for their continuing leadership in making this dream a reality. We extend our gratitude to the entire Assembly and Senate for unanimously passing this landmark legislation.”

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Infectious disease specialists complement each other

Dr. Atul Humar, left, and his wife, Dr. Deepali Kumar, both physicians and infectious disease researchers, work in a lab at Katz Group Centre for Pharmacology on the University of Alberta campus. Photograph by: Shaughn Butts, The Journal, Edmonton Journal

Super' duo together, at home and at work

By Chris Zdeb, Edmonton Journal

Physician-scientists Atul Humar and Deepali Kumar are the only husband-wife transplant infectious disease team in the world.

Transplant patients are subject to infections because of the powerful drugs they take to suppress their immune systems so they won't reject the new organs. Humar researches how herpes viruses cause disease in these immunocompromised people. Kumar looks at how transplant patients respond to vaccines.

The similarity of their work allows them to manage each other's patients or research projects when necessary.

"They're a super couple who work almost seamlessly with each other, even though they very keenly maintain their own identity," says Dr. Barbara Ballermann, chairwoman of the University of Alberta department of medicine, where they work. "That type of relationship is really uncommon."

Their team approach continues at home, where they are parents to son Dino, 6, and daughters Sapna, 9, and Sonika, 4.

"We spend a lot of time together," says Humar, prompting laughter from his wife.

Adds Kumar: "Ideas don't occur to somebody only from 9 to 5, so if an idea occurs in the evening, then it's very easy to bounce ideas off each other" -- when they're not running off to take the kids to soccer, swimming, taekwondo or piano, that is.

Their offices are next door to one another in the Katz Group Centre for Pharmacology. They also work side by side in a lab on another floor.

Told that some might see this as too much togetherness, the pair smiles and nods.

"Couples who get along really well with each other say, 'Oh that's really cool,' and those that don't get along go, 'How do you tolerate that?' " Humar says, laughing.

"Like, 'How do you stand to be with each other for 24 hours?' So we get both reactions," Kumar adds.

Humar and Kumar have a "very compatible temperament" that's important to their success, not only as husband and wife, but as scientists, observes Dr. Lorne Tyrrell, a former dean of the faculty of medicine and dentistry who also works with infectious diseases at the U of A. He has known them for 18 months.

Humar says he's good at coming up with ideas, but not at implementation and logistics, which are Kumar's strong points.

"I think that's why our research has worked so well together because we kind of complement each other's strengths and weaknesses," he says.

The couple have an easy rapport, and often finish each other's sentences, as happens sometimes when you've been married for 10 years.

They share interests in Indian music and Bollywood movies. Kumar is such a fan, she doesn't think twice before answering she'd like to be a leading Bollywood actress if she wasn't a physician-scientist.

"If somebody came and said, 'You have a part in a movie,' I'd go, 'I'm there,' " she says, laughing. "But then I'd come back and do my day job."

Humar, a space buff who is into Star Trek and Star Wars, says he would be an astronaut.

Their lives became entwined when they met through their parents, who are friends and academics at Carleton University in Ottawa. Kumar was 18 and Humar 22.

They have so many "really freaky" things in common -- among them, the similarity of their last names, and their dads sharing the same birthday -- that Kumar says it's almost as if they were fated to meet and be together.

But they lost touch as education and work took them to different places in Canada and the U.S., until their infectious disease specialties brought them together again.

"We were friends for a long time," Humar, 41, says.

"We lived in different cities; we didn't really date. One day, I guess it was sort of time to get married," finishes Kumar, 37.

Humar was at the University of Toronto, where he pioneered the first transplant infectious diseases program in Canada, when Kumar started working there in 2004.

They moved to Edmonton in 2007 after the U of A came calling with positions and lab space.

Humar is the director of the transplant infectious diseases program and an associate professor of medicine.

Kumar is an assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases. (Her work was recently recognized with an award from the American Society of Transplantation.)

Their stars will continue to rise, says Ballermann, noting that because of how long it takes to train in medicine, people in their early 40s are still considered fairly young.

"They may not have achieved the status of Wayne Gretzky in medicine, but they're on the same team," she says.

Besides finding their ideal jobs here, the couple, who have a five-minute commute from home, also found the work-life balance they were looking for.

"It's just a more kid-friendly place (than Toronto) basically," Humar says. "It allows us to do what we want to do at work and, at the same time, allows us to spend time with the kids and ensure that they're able to do all the things they want to do, and yet, spend time as a family.

"Work is important and we put 110 per cent into work, but our life revolves around our kids. Family is always No. 1."

Many people, especially academics, are very driven and their work is kind of an overriding thing, he continues. "But I think the main message here is that you can actually do both (be a parent and an academic), and do them well. It's all about what you decide are your priorities."

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Specialist flown to Quebec from Toronto for artificial lung surgery

Sherbrooke man survives rare lung surgery

Procedure is the first of its kind in Quebec history

CBC News

Doctors in Sherbrooke, Que. are hopeful that a man suffering from severe pneumonia may have a fighting chance after surviving a rare lung procedure.

The man is believed to be the first in Quebec to have survived the surgery to attach an external artificial lung, known as a Novalung, to his leg.

The device is meant to perform some of the functions of a normal lung, including clearing the body of carbon dioxide and pumping a small amount of oxygen into the body through the arteries and veins in the leg.

The patients involved in the first two surgeries in Quebec did not survive the procedure.

Doctors said the device can only operate for up to 29 days.

“It's going to be there for a short period of time, after a while we're going to take it out. The device is just to let the lung recover from the pneumonia,” said Dr. Marco Sirois, a thoracic surgeon with Sherbrooke University Health Centre.

The 47-year old patient, who cannot be identified due to privacy regulations, is still in critical condition.

His daughters said they remain optimistic, despite the fact that their father is still seriously ill.

"We’re trying to stay realistic," said Noémie, one of the patient's daughters.

"But the surgery has given us hope,” said the other daughter, Jessica.

The surgery is so rare in Quebec that doctors in Sherbrooke sought the help of a specialist from Toronto, who was flown in from Montreal in a Quebec provincial police helicopter.

The Novalung is also sometimes used to help patients who are waiting for a lung transplant.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Man donates part of liver to dad while awaiting second child

Peter Boughan donated 70 percent of his liver to his father Robin

By CARMELA FRAGOMENI, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR, Ontario, Canada

Fatherhood has extraordinary meaning in Burlington's Boughan family.

Son Peter, 30, recently donated 70 per cent of his liver to his father Robin, 63. It saved Robin's life.

In a week or two, Peter will become a father again when his wife Jen gives birth to their second child.

"My dad's health was going down quite rapidly and I love my dad," said Peter about undergoing the transplant despite having 15-month-old daughter Leah to care for and another baby on the way.

"I don't think I could live with myself happily if I didn't do anything and I could have made a difference."

Peter, a supply teacher, was the third person tested for suitability. The first, Robin's brother who 21 years ago donated bone marrow to help Robin to fight leukemia, turned out to be a no-go. Same for Robin's daughter.

In all, seven family members, friends and fellow churchgoers at Hamilton's Philpott Memorial had offered part of their liver. Many more in Hamilton, Burlington, the U.S. and Africa offered their prayers after hearing about Robin through friends, family or the church network.

"This is the answer to the prayers of many people," Robin said. "It became a wonder to me to hear from someone that so and so was praying for me.

"The whole thing has an emotion for me that is very gripping. I get very emotional these people would do this for me ... and to think my son would do what he did for me ..."

Robin, a retired teacher and former art department head at Sherwood Secondary in Hamilton, was diagnosed in March 2009 with cirrhosis.

"He doesn't even drink," said his wife Sandy.

Doctors who did the transplant at Toronto General blamed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. His Hamilton doctors thought it was something else. Whatever the cause, the result was the same: he needed a new liver or he would die.

Robin was put on a list for a transplant this November when his symptoms worsened. He moved up when his kidneys started to fail and water retention bloated him severely. By March 31, doctors bumped another patient out of surgery to make room for Robin's operation because he was too sick to wait anymore.

"It was very stressful," Sandy said. "Because you have both of them in surgery at the same time, on the same day, and they are long surgeries."

Peter's surgery was seven hours, Robin's 13.

"Even though they tell you Peter's healthy, it's still stressful," Sandy said. "He has a wife who's pregnant and a daughter ..."

Both she and Robin urge people to sign their donor card and make their wishes for organ donation clear to their families, especially when it comes to livers.

Once in, liver transplants have the lowest chance of rejection among transplants and 90 per cent of the removed portion used in the transplant grows back within 12 weeks, doctors told them.

"They are looking for liver donors all the time," Sandy said.

From a statistical point of view, the transplant is relatively risk-free, said Robin. Even 80-year-olds can donate because the liver is an organ that regenerates itself.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 75 to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You