Getting the message out

Marci Oliverio and Teresa Disano want to get their message out there.

That message is ‘think about registering some day as an organ donor.’

The two women, both living healthy, working lives as kidney transplant recipients, spoke to a group of students, from Grades Four to Eight, at St. Theresa Catholic School Friday about donation of organs to help save the lives of others.

Some of the students wore green and grouped into a ribbon shape at today’s gathering.

The Living Green Ribbon is the symbol of the Kidney Foundation of Canada’s kidney donation awareness and fundraising program.

“It’s very important,” Oliverio told SooToday.com.

“There are thousands of people on the waiting list for not only kidneys, but many organs.  It saves lives.”

“We went to St. Theresa School to raise organ donation awareness, but because we were kidney patients, we went more in depth about kidney failure.  The kids participated really well, they asked a lot of good questions, we showed a video of someone on dialysis.  We discussed who can donate, about how an organ can be taken from a living donor or a deceased person who registered as an organ donor while still living.”

Oliverio, who works as a pharmacy technician, added many people in Ontario believe they are registered donors because they have signed a donor’s card, but one still has to officially register at  www.beadonor.ca.

A person may register as a donor at age 18, but Teresa Disano told us children can be registered if they want to.

“Children’s parents can register them, but a lot of parents wouldn’t want to make that choice for them.  We just wanted to get the kids to be aware and talk to their parents about it.”

“There are thousands of people who are on a waiting list for kidney transplants, heart transplants, lung transplants…there are not enough people registered.”

“People are dying while waiting on a list.”

Disano is also the 2013 Chair for the Give the Gift of Life Walk, to be held by the Kidney Foundation in September in many communities, including Sault Ste. Marie.

“The kids at St. Theresa were very receptive.  We had a Power Point presentation ready, but with all the questions they were asking us, we didn’t need it.  All the questions they were asking were pinpointing the things we would have shown on Power Point.”

There are many misconceptions and fears about donating organs, Disano said.

“People wonder is the living donor of a kidney going to get sick and die by donating a kidney?  That’s not the case at all.  People can live a happy and normal life with one kidney, if they feel they want to donate a kidney.”

For Marci Oliverio, her experience with kidney disease began when she was 16.

“I had internal bleeding.  I was told I would have to go on dialysis.”

When she was 19, she received a kidney transplant at hospital in London, Ontario.

“Once I got on the transplant list, I only had to wait for four months.  Most transplants last 10 to 15 years, but I’ve gone beyond that now.  I’ve now had 23 years of good health.”  

“When I was on the waiting list, I was active, I was in high school.  My family and friends were all very supportive, but I had to take it day by day.”

“I didn’t know if I would wake up one morning and have no energy to do anything, no energy to go to school and get through the day.  The day I got the call (for her kidney transplant), it was scary, it was happiness, it was crying, it was a lot of emotion.”

Teresa Disano, now 36, works as a dental hygiene coordinator, and received her kidney from her husband.

Her kidney transplant operation took place nearly one year ago, on May 2, 2012, in London, Ontario.

“In 2011, I started having nosebleeds, and then I was tired, sleeping 12 to 15 hours a day.  I was on dialysis for about 15 months.  My husband was being tested as a donor.  In February 2012 we found out my husband was a match, and in May 2012 I had my kidney transplant.”

“When I found out my husband was a match, it was one of the happiest days in my life.  There were a lot of tears of relief, because dialysis takes a toll on your body.  It’s a lifestyle change, to be young and to be in hospital three days a week for four hours at a time, you can’t travel.”

“It’s a disability.”

Underscoring the need for more people to consider being donors, Disano told us “I was lucky.  My husband was a match for me.  Sometimes it can be two to seven years on a waiting list.”

(The photos for this story were provided by Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board Communications and Marketing Assistant Michael Mangone)