A Canadian Blood Services’ program could help save multiple people waiting for an organ donation, such as Marc Lemoine from Manitoba who has been awaiting a kidney transplant for more than two years.
When Lemoine was 21-years-old he was told his kidneys were failing due to an untreated strep throat infection that lead to a rare kidney condition.
He got a transplant from his mother but 20 years later, his body has started rejecting it.
He now is hooked up to a dialysis machine twice a day to remove unwanted waste from his blood.
“You’re stuck to a machine 10 hours a day,” Lemoine told CTV Winnipeg, adding that it’s taken a major toll on his life.
“I was really starting to feel it. I stopped working because I couldn’t travel anymore,” he said.
His wife, Francine Lepage-Lemoine, decided to step up and get tested to see if she’d be a match.
Unfortunately she wasn’t a match for Lemoine, but a program put in place by Canadian Blood Services means her kidney can still be donated to stranger.
“You’re considered across Canada to be part of a chain where I would give a kidney if someone were a match to Marc and gave their kidney to him,” Lepage-Lemoine said.
The donor chain creates endless recipient-donor pairings and according to the Canadian Blood Services, more the 500 kidney transplants have been done through the program since 2009.
“It’s a gift of a normal life for everybody, for all of us,” said Lemoine.
If everything works out, Lepage-Lemoine told CTV Winnipeg that she will be travelling to B.C. in the next few months to give her kidney to a stranger.
In the meantime, the couple is cautiously optimistic as they wait for Lemoine’s operation day.
With files from CTV Winnipeg’s Katherine Dow
