If all goes according to plan, Ferris Backmeyer, 4, of Kamloops, will receive a new kidney on Saturday morning in Vancouver.
Her mother, Lindsey, posted the good news on Facebook on Friday morning:
“Oh my goodness I don’t have words. I knew this would happen . . . or was hoping so badly that this would happen!! We got the callllll!!! Mom had already left about 30 minutes before with a car loaded up with our stuff! She’s coming back!!! Ferris will be admitted this afternoon with plans to be transplanted early tomorrow morning. Kidney transplant . . . take 2!!!”
The Backmeyers have been in Vancouver since late December after getting a phone call advising them that a kidney had been found for Ferris. However, after getting settled in Vancouver and preparing for the big day, the surgery was called off.
As Lindsey put it at the time, the medical team “came in about an hour ago now and told us that the retrieval surgeon contacted him with not-so-great news about the kidney.”
She added: “The surgeon said he always asks himself if he would put the kidney in his own daughter and he said absolutely not to this one. That’s good enough for me.”
That brings us to the present. . . .
Ferris was diagnosed with Mainzer-Saldino syndrome shortly after birth. Kidney failure quickly followed, meaning she has been on dialysis — either peritoneal (PD) or hemo — for pretty much all of her short life.
Ferris had been having issues with doing PD in December when the call came about a potential transplant. Because of those issues, she had been scheduled to return to B.C. Children’s Hospital in January to be transitioned to hemo.
That early January transplant didn’t happen, but Ferris stayed in Vancouver and made the move to hemo. It was just last week when she was transitioned back to PD. And, seemingly without a new kidney in sight, the family — Ferris’s older sisters, Tavia, 9, and Ksenia, 7, also have been in Vancouver — was readying to return to their Kamloops home. Ferris’s father, Pat, is attending school in Kamloops, so has been putting on the miles as he spends time in both cities.
And, as you will have noted by Lindsey’s post, her mother, Leslie, was already en route to Kamloops when the call came on Friday. Grandma turned around and headed back, of course.
And now the excitement will be palpable as everyone awaits Saturday morning.
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.
Do good, feel good! Register to be an organ donor and get that warm fuzzy feeling. 1 organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Taketwominutes.ca #TakeTwoMinutes
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