Organ Works

Kurt Penner, A Double-Lung Transplant Recipient, Has Become A Passionate Advocate For Organ And Tissue Donations, Which Are Needed By About 4,000 Canadians

By Peter Geigen-Miller

Free Press Reporter

January 5, 2004

A desperately ill Kurt Penner knew time was rapidly running out when the phone rang in his Dorchester home on a June day in 2002. The call was one Penner had almost given up hope of receiving -- a summons to Toronto to receive the double lung transplant that was his only hope of survival.

Eighteen months later, Penner is alive and well and forever grateful to the unknown donor whose death meant he could continue living.

The experience has turned Penner into an ardent campaigner for organ donor awareness, a walking testament to the value of transplant surgery.

Penner, 55, was living in Calgary when his health nightmare began in 1999.

Until then, he'd enjoyed good health and a medical checkup early that year found him to be in good shape.

He was a "social" smoker -- half a pack a day -- but had biked 20 kilometres a day to work and back when he lived in Saskatoon before moving to Calgary.

Then, in the early summer of 1999, while Penner and his wife, Lila, were in Japan visiting their two sons who were teaching English there, he began to experience severe shortness of breath.

"By the time, we left Japan, I couldn't carry my suitcases," he remembers.

Back home in Calgary, doctors diagnosed heart trouble and Penner was fitted with a pacemaker.

That helped, but within about a year, Penner's condition began to deteriorate rapidly.

This time, doctors diagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a group of disorders that restricts breathing. The doctors advised Penner he would need a lung transplant.

Because the Penners didn't know anyone in Edmonton, the nearest city with a lung-transplant centre, they decided to move to the more familiar southern Ontario, their original home.

They chose the London area so Penner could have his surgery at London Health Sciences Centre.

But in October 2001, the same day the Penners were moving into their Dorchester home, came newspaper headlines that lung transplants were on a list of medical services London was likely to lose.

Because the decision was not final, doctors continued to assess him as a potential transplant patient.

On Dec. 5, his doctor told Penner he'd be recommended for a lung transplant.

On Dec. 6, the doctor phoned back to say the London lung transplant centre was closing and he'd have to shift to Toronto's transplant centre.

"It hit me pretty hard," he says. "As sick as I was, I didn't relish going to Toronto."

But he didn't have much choice.

"My health was declining rapidly. I was on 24-hour-a-day oxygen and I could walk only short distances. It was a bleak outlook."

He and his wife began travelling to Toronto as often as three times a week so doctors could assess him.

On March 17, 2002, he received a beeper from the hospital, meaning he was on the transplant waiting list.

Then the anxious waiting began.

By mid-June, he doubted he'd survive.

"I was extremely ill," Penner recalls. "I was almost ready to give up hope. 'I need that transplant or let me go' -- that's how I felt."

On June 23, the phone rang. A transplant match was available. Could he be at the Toronto hospital within two hours?

His response was an immediate yes.

By early the next morning, Penner had new lungs.

He suffered a major setback a few days after surgery, lapsing into a coma that lasted for two weeks.

"I came out of the coma and since then, there has been steady improvement," he says.

His experience has made Penner appreciate the need for more donor organs of all kinds.

But the supply of organs continues to fall far short of meeting the need, says Corinne Weernink, a transplant co-ordinator at the London Health Sciences Centre and incoming president of the Canadian Association of Transplantation.

There are more than 4,000 people in Canada awaiting transplants and the number is rising quickly, says Weernink.

"Probably in the next five years, we'll see that number double."

The problem is, the number of transplants performed in Canada has remained about the same for many years, fewer than 2,000 each year.

Plenty of people have signed organ donor cards, but the number of people who can donate is limited, says Weernink.

Donors have to die in specific circumstances -- a head injury that leaves the person brain dead, but with other organs intact, for example.

To ensure no organs are wasted, it's vital for would-be donors not only to sign their donor cards, but also to make their wishes known to their families, says Weernink.

That way, there will be no awkward hospital scenes with distraught family members agonizing over whether to approve organ donations, she says.

Penner says agreeing to donate organs can bring solace in a time of tragedy because family members will know their decision has brought life to someone else.

TRANSPLANT FACTS

Age is not a barrier to organ or tissue donations. The oldest organ donor was over 90 and the oldest tissue donor was 102.

Organs and tissue suitable for donation include the heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, lungs, small bowel, stomach, eyes, heart valves, bone and skin.

More than 4,000 people across Canada are on the organ donor waiting list and hundreds die each year while waiting for a transplant.

Most major religions support organ and tissue donation and restrictions may not apply if the donation could save a life.

The first successful transplant was in 1954 in Boston and involved a living donor who gave a kidney to his identical twin brother.

Sources: Trillium Gift of Life Network, London Health Sciences Centre's multi-organ transplant program.

Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2003 The London Free Press.

This article posted January 31, 2004.