The athletes competing in Ottawa this week have one thing in common — they have either been given a second lease on life or gave that second lease to someone else.
The Canadian Transplant Games are taking place from Saturday to next Friday, based at Carleton University with events including cycling, running, triathlon, track and field, pickleball, golf, bowling, table tennis, swimming, lawn bowling and petanque being held in venues around the city.
One of the goals is to get the transplant community together to tell their stories. The other is to promote organ donation awareness to the general public, says Canadian Transplant Association president Brenda Brown.
Brown, for example, received a donated kidney 11 years ago as part of a three-way exchange after her daughter stepped up to donate. If that hadn’t happened, Brown was told she might have waited 10 years for a kidney from a deceased donor.
Sylvie Charlebois’s son Benoît, a competitive swimmer, learned that his kidney function was reduced to about 25 per cent by the time he was in his mid-20s. He followed a special diet for three years, but soon faced either dialysis or a kidney transplant. Sylvie donated a kidney to her son in 2012 and he was back at work four weeks after the surgery.
“We realize how precious something is after you see someone lose it,” says Sylvie. “We saw him getting weaker and weaker before his surgery, but he never missed a day of work. After the transplant, he was full of energy and back on track. “