“It won’t be painful, but make your will…”
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
It was somewhere in 2005 and Patrice Dionne had resigned himself to dying. The Beauceron suffered from a rare heart condition that landed him for years on a waiting list for a heart transplant.
And there, the final trowel: a diagnosis of cirrhosis of the cardiac liver, “not related to the drink”, he specifies. His liver was also kaput.
Doctors at Laval Hospital in Quebec told Patrice Dionne that transplanting a heart and a liver was impossible.
Hence this sentence: make your will…
“I have a little nonchalance in me, I had been preparing to die for four, five years. But there, you are told: “You only have four, five months to live…” As they say in Beauce: it spanks! »
If I report today the words of Patrice Dionne, it is obviously that he miraculously survived.
I summarize the sequence of events: his doctors in Quebec put him in contact with a team from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, where we were just working on a double transplant project…
The Royal Vic team offered him to be the first Quebec patient to be attempted a heart-liver transplant. “They told me: ‘It’s never been tried, but if you want, we’ll try it on you…’ What did you want me to say, I was almost already dead! I said yes ! »
The double transplant worked. It was in 2006. Patrice Dionne is now 70 years old.
This is not a chronicle of a miracle of modern medicine. This is the story of crucial support in the recovery of Patrice Dionne: the Maison des graftés Lina-Cyr, in Montreal. It is an essential—I dare say: vital—resource for people awaiting a transplant who live far from Montreal.
Organ transplants are a hyperspecialty of state-of-the-art hospitals. The majority of transplants are therefore done in Montreal. In the months when you are expecting an organ, you are weak, vulnerable, at the end of your energies. And when the phone rings to tell you that we have an organ for you, well… ideally you should already be not far from Montreal. Because every minute counts.
What do you do if you live in Gaspésie?
In Beauce?
In Abitibi?
To the lake ?
There is the option of renting a hotel room in Montreal. But hello debt, for people who can no longer work…
This is where Lina Cyr comes in, who received a liver transplant in 1987. A native of Gaspé, she met several patients in Montreal who were waiting, like her. At the worst time of their life, there was this concern for them: accommodation.
Mme Cyr said to himself: we must help this world!
This is how she bought and renovated an old convent of nuns, corner Sherbrooke and De Lorimier, to accommodate patients from the regions who have to grind their teeth in Montreal, waiting for an organ. The Maison des graftés Lina-Cyr opened its doors in 1994 and since then, 29,000 people have been housed there at (very) low cost and supported by an infrastructure of medical and therapeutic services.
PHOTO ARMAND TROTTIER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Lina Cyr, in 2002
Patrice Dionne was one of these people, he became a resident of the Maison des graftés in October 2005. During his stay, constantly out of breath, he met Serge Trépanier, a hockey man from Amos. Mr. Trépanier was expecting a liver transplant. The Abitibi and Beauceron mutually supported each other.
Patrice Dionne remembers the welcome of Lina Cyr (now deceased) and her empathy, the dedication of the staff, the solidarity between residents.
To keep the little shape he had left, he tried to take walks on Sherbrooke Street, during which he had to ” [s]lean on every telephone pole to resume [son] breath “…
Patrice Dionne knows that at the worst time of his life, the Maison des graftés allowed him to focus on the essential: to survive. “Mme Cyr had explained her story to Serge and me, and how she financed the operations, with spaghetti dinners in the region…”
Mr. Dionne and Mr. Trépanier said to themselves: we have to help Lina!
And once grafted, that’s what they did.
Every year, since 2007, they have therefore organized the Défi-vélo de la Maison des greffés. Pre-pandemic, each Challenge raised tens of thousands of dollars. In 2020 and 2021, the Challenge took place virtually: the harvests were meager, of course…
This year, the Challenge is heading back to reality: Beloeil-Lévis, as usual. It happens in mid-July. Three days of cycling, 320 km. You have to register now. Patrice Dionne and Serge Trépanier, back from the dead, cycle their lives to give back…
“That was our mission, after our transplants,” says Patrice Dionne.
Without the funds raised by the Défi-vélo since 2007, the Maison des graftés Lina Cyr would not offer the same services. Perhaps it would no longer offer services at all and our fellow citizens in the regions would be in trouble, waiting for a transplant in Montreal.
In short, if you feel like pedaling with survivors like MM. Dionne and Trépanier for a good cause…
“Not too hard, 320 km, Mr. Dionne?
– Not easy, not easy! answers the Beauceron. I have to train all winter. Serge, it’s different. Serge is an athlete, a former major junior, he doesn’t need to train, let’s say he pushes us a lot in the ribs…”