WATCH: A 31-year-old mother from Langford is putting a call out on social media for a living kidney donor after her first transplant in May failed. April Lawrence reports.
Drielle Tousignant is a 31-year-old mother to 10-year-old Logan who will soon spend several hours every day on kidney dialysis.
Tousignant was living an active life when she came down with strep throat in 2013. She was put on antibiotics but when she tried to return to her job as a care aid she knew something was seriously wrong.
“Just that feeling of hopelessness and my residents were comforting me because I was like I don’t know what’s wrong,” an emotional Tousignant said.
Doctors ran some tests then called to tell her her kidneys had failed and she needed to get to the hospital immediately.
“Logan came up to me, put his hands on my knees and said mom and I ever going to see you again? That’s the part that gets me every time,” she said.
She was put on medication, but last year, doctors told her it was time to start looking for a living donor. Her sister made a poster with Tousignant’s blood type (A+) and started circulating it on social media. Then an acquaintance reached out and it turned out she was a match.
“It blew me away that somebody I wasn’t close with, that I wasn’t best friends with would do something so big, basically save a life,” said Tousignant.
In May, both women went to St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver for the transplant but not long after waking up from surgery Tousignant knew something was wrong.
The kidney had failed after a blood clot formed and within 24 hours it was removed. Tousignant says she felt awful for her donor.
“I wish she had that happy ending to doing something so big, and so great for somebody in need, I wish I could have given her that,” she said.
Tousignant is now down to 12 per cent kidney function and will start home dialysis soon. Her living donor poster is being shared again and she’s now on the deceased donors list.
She hopes her story inspires people to sign up to be an organ donor.
To learn more about being an organ donor and to register, click here.
April Lawrence
