The phone call came and Ferris Backmeyer, her mother, Lindsey, and father, Pat, left their home in Kamloops for B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver on Tuesday morning.
In the wee hours of that morning, Lindsey, below a photo of her and a sleeping Ferris, who is soon to turn four, posted on Facebook:
“We got the call!!! In a few short hours I will be waking this sweet girl up and packing her into the truck and driving her to BCCH . . . where hopefully she will get a beautifully healthy kidney!!!!”
Later on Tuesday morning, Lindsey’s father, Ken Maydaniuk, posted:
“This girl is on her way to the BCCH with mom and dad. A call came during the night that a they have a kidney for Ferris. Grandma and the bigs will follow. Fingers crossed for Ferris and family that the surgery will all workout. That’s a great Christmas gift. . . . We’re all very grateful for the massive support the family has received.”
Grandma is Lindsey’s mother, Leslie, while the “bigs” are Ferris’s older sisters Ksenia and Tavia.
Ferris, of course, is hardly a stranger to BCCH, having first been there when she was three weeks old. She was diagnosed with Mainzer-Saldino syndrome and it wasn’t long before she experienced kidney failure.
For the vast majority of her young life, then, Ferris has been on dialysis, mostly peritoneal dialysis (PD), something that can be done while at home and is done on a daily basis. On the occasions when there have been issues with PD, she has had to return to BCCH and transition to hemodialysis, at least until the PD situation was straightened out.
Of late, Ferris has been experiencing problems with PD, especially when it comes to draining, which means she has been retaining fluid. She was scheduled to return to BCCH early in January to be transitioned to hemo in an attempt to quell those issues. In time, and without a kidney available. it was hoped that she would be able to go back to PD and return home.
Now, however, it seems that there is a living donor who has passed all the tests and things just may be ready to go. It was almost a year and a half ago that the Backmeyers were given the OK to begin a public search for a donor, and that’s when Lindsey turned to Facebook in an attempt to find someone willing to offer up a kidney for her donor.
Now it seems as though the search may be over.
Ferris, you got this little girl!
If you are interested in being a living kidney donor, more information is available here:
Living Kidney Donor Program
St. Paul’s Hospital
6A Providence Building
1081 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-9027
Toll free: 1-877-922-9822
Fax: 604-806-9873
Email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca
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Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney
Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre
Level 5, 2775 Laurel Street
Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9
604-875-5182 or 1-855-875-5182
kidneydonornurse@vch.ca
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Or, for more information, visit right here.
TAKING NOTE 