October 17 is the world Day
organ donation and transplantation – created in 2005 by WHO, the World Health Organization. In France, each year, there are more than 5000 grafts
of organs. For the occasion, France Bleu Bourgogne has collected the testimony of Jacqueline Petit-Schoch. This 82-year-old Dijonnaise donated a kidneyten years ago, in 2012, to save the life of Christian, his first cousin.
“Christian is also very good. He just sent me a photo, he was on the back of a camel, in Essaouira”
In 2010, Jacqueline learns that her first cousin, Christian, suffering from kidney cancer, had to undergo an ablation. “We removed this kidney, except that he only had one”, she recalls. She goes to the hospital, in Annecy (Haute-Savoie), to see him. “He was on dialysis, every day for five hours, and it made me very sick to my heart”. Quickly, she decides. “I told him: ‘don’t worry Christian, you don’t have a kidney anymore, I’m going to give you one'”.
Jacqueline and Christian then waited three years before the operation can be performed. “First to be sure that I was ready to donate my kidney. We followed a lot of tests, obviously, she relates. To find out if we were compatible, of course, but above all in order to protect the donor”. She recounts the passages before the psychologists and an ethics committee, which makes the final decision: “There were nine people around a table, nephrologists, doctors, surgeons, etc. They detect if you are still determined to donate your kidney, if you are not backing down and if there are no commercial or financial interests”.
The operation finally took place, in Lyon, on September 24, 2012. “And I feel good, and I’m good, and Christian is very good too. He just sent me a picture, he was on the back of a camel, in Essaouira, Morocco”laughs Jacqueline.
“I was perfectly convinced, no one managed to make me change my mind”
Have you ever been afraid? Jacqueline replies tac-au-ac: “if”. A yes, but. “I had measured everything, obviously, she specifies. Let it go badly, let me go on dialysis myself, but I was quite determined. I was 72 years old, my life was behind me, I was retired. I lived alone, it was not a problem for me, I was perfectly convinced, no one managed to make me change my mind”.
“You need a certain courage, you need a lot of convictions, and above all to want to. If you want to, you have to do it, because it’s someone’s life that you’re extending” – Jacqueline
“We always say: ‘we live very well with just one kidney.’ what I want, I do gymnastics, I walk”. Subsequently, Jacqueline became involved in the voluntary sectorwith France ADOT 21
which is part of the “Fédération des HASassociations for the Dwe ofOrganes and Tof human origin”.
Did this operation change her ties with this cousin she savedand who benefits today from retirement by riding camels in the desert? “Our relationship is always the same, replies Jacqueline. It didn’t necessarily bring us closer. He lives his life. We phone each other maybe twice a year. The main thing for me is to know that he is well. I don’t think he feels indebted, in any case I expect absolutely nothing. It’s just the success of this operation that gave me the greatest happiness”.
loading