A Mauricie woman who has been waiting for a kidney for almost 2 years has decided to take matters into her own hands by looking for a donor herself on Facebook.
• Read also: “For me, she is my heroine”: she is about to donate one of her kidneys to her husband of the last 29 years
After several weeks of suffering from pain, fatigue and vomiting, Nancy Plante learned in November 2021 that she was suffering from kidney failure. The Louiseville woman with polycystic disease must urgently begin dialysis while awaiting a kidney transplant.
“Because of my blood group which is rare [O positif]the waiting times can go up to 5 years”, she explains.
Against all odds, less than a month after being put on the transplant list, she obtained a kidney compatible with her blood group. In December 2021, she travels to Montreal to undergo her operation. Confident, she believed that this ordeal would soon be over, but an unpleasant surprise awaited her.
“When I woke up, I was told that the kidney could not be transplanted because the organ had been damaged,” laments the one who fell into a darker period after this event.
Several relatives raised their hands and offered to undergo the many tests necessary to validate their compatibility with her. Unfortunately, his sister’s candidacy could not be accepted since she was not in good enough health. As for her husband, Nancy was fearful that her husband would go under the knife.
“I didn’t want us to find ourselves both recovering at the same time, with no one to take care of us,” she says.
Calling all
After a year without news and a renal filtration capacity reduced to 4%, she is appealing to everyone on social networks in April 2023.
“I hesitated for a long time before publishing, but I have a friend who found a donor this way […] I have also seen other testimonials from people who have found thanks to social networks, ”she says confidently.
Nearly 5000 shares later and many messages that have not been followed up, she is contacted by a serious man who wants to offer her one of his kidneys.
“He had already done the tests, so it was very quick. We were unfortunately not compatible, but we were able to register for cross-donations, ”she adds.
The goal of cross-donation is to match two pairs made up of a donor and a recipient together so that each person waiting for a kidney receives a compatible kidney. As soon as a match is possible, the transplants are carried out very quickly.
“Unfortunately, we were not called for a match […] on June 5, he had to withdraw from the program [à cause d’un conflit d’horaire]“, underlines Ms. Plante.
That’s why she decided to launch her appeal again in the hope of finding a kidney to allow her to resume a normal life. In her post, she invites anyone interested in the process to contact the transplant center at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.
As of December 31, 2022, 3,777 Canadians were waiting for an organ transplant in the country. Of that number, the Canadian Institute for Health Information reports that 59% were on an immediate waiting list.