Tricia Carribon has given life to her son Mikkel Wilson twice. The first time was some 17 years ago when he was born. The second was in January last year when Carribon gave one of her kidneys to Wilson after he suffered renal failure.
“To say thank you to her for what she did would almost be like not enough because I mean she gave me life and then saved it.
“So being able to put it in words which someone else could understand is kind of hard, so it is almost like if you watching a movie and a character says ‘I am eternally grateful.’ Well it is something like that,” Mikkel said.
Last Sunday, Guardian Media launched Gift of Life, a campaign to promote public awareness about organ donation and transplant with the aim of encouraging citizens to augment this country’s donor pool.
This week the T&T Sunday Guardian focuses on two mothers who gave their kidneys to save the lives of their children.
Like Carribon, Nalini Narine also stepped up when her son needed her most.
She donated her kidney to her son, Aaron, who suffered from renal failure when he was only 17 days old. On June 29 Aaron celebrated his 17th birthday due in large part to the donation of his mother’s kidney.
While the paths of Mikkel and Aaron, who are both aged 17 have been different, one constant in both their lives is the unconditional love of their mothers.
A mother’s love
In September 2013, Mikkel, who was described as a “relatively normal 14-year-old schoolboy” by his mother, had just started Form Four at Trinity College in Moka, Maraval, when he started to complain about cramps in his hand and lost his appetite. Tricia carried him to the family’s doctor and blood tests were done.
That was when Wilson’s life changed.
“When my mom got the results back she was on work and they just came and picked me up from school in the middle of the day and she told me about the results while we were in the car.
“I was not sure what it meant at the time and I only understood what was going on when we were by the doctor and he was talking and he referred me to (the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex) Mt Hope because he said with results like this, it was beyond his field,” Wilson said.
After he was admitted to hospital it was determined that he had end stage renal failure and both of his kidneys were not functioning.
Tricia said it was a “confusing” time for them.
“It did not have a major lead up. We went from home to living in the hospital for four or five days. I was confused and I said I needed somebody to explain this to me properly. I started research, I even wrote a doctor in Jamaica because I was just looking for answers and trying to understand what was going on,” she said.
“During that period we found out about the National Organ Transplant Unit (NOTU) downstairs and when I went to find out about it I thought, well you put your name on the list and something would happen and you would get a kidney but then I found out it does not work like that.
“There are hundreds of people on the list and you have to be extremely lucky to get a donor that matches you,” she said.
Tricia said NOTU staff informed her that the family were a likely match. Her mind was made up.
“That is when I started the process of getting tested to see if I was compatible and it worked out that I was,” she said.
She decided to transfer Wilson out of the Moka school to one closer to family. She went to a popular Port-of-Spain college but was not seen by anyone there, so on the advice of a friend she went to St George’s College in Barataria to see if she could get Wilson transferred there.
The school’s principal James Sammy “saw me without hesitation”, she recalled.
“He told me, ‘You know what, I don’t have any more room in my school but I will make room for this child. Life has dealt you a real negative blow and I’m not going to turn him down’. That was a mind blowing experience,” she said.
Wilson started school there in January 2014. He had started dialysis the month before and did for just over a year.
“For the whole year he did dialysis he had to leave school twice a week. I had to take him up on a Wednesday around 1 pm, do dialysis, finish dialysis around 7 pm, and then on Saturday we would do the routine again. That particular year was real rough. He missed classes, he got schoolwork from friends,” she said.
In January 2015 Wilson got the kidney transplant.
“When he got my kidney he was away from school for that entire term, so he missed school from January to March. He went back after the Easter term and he tried to catch up with his school work,” she added.
Wilson got seven passes in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exam this year and will be starting Sixth Form at St George’s College tomorrow. He will be doing Chemistry, Biology and Food and Nutrition.
“I was just happy that I was a match, that we were compatible. Of course he is getting an older person’s kidney so from reading literature and stuff kidney transplants most likely don’t last forever.
“They have a life span of 12 to 15 years,” she said.
“You can have multiple kidney transplants in your lifetime. It is something I don’t like to think about as a parent. I don’t have any more to give to him. Who will be down the road? I always try to think positive and try to promote positive eating habits because it is one kidney we both have.”
Not only does Wilson have a new lease on life he also has plans for the future.
“I want to go into genetic engineering. I am not sure if I want to get into the food and crops aspect or the medicine aspect but there are pathways to do both because I really like the aspect to helping people and that is where the genetic engineering comes in,” he said.
“To me being a doctor is helping people but the type of help I want to do is on a grand scale. With genetic engineering there is the creation of new drugs and making them cheaper for persons who cannot afford the expensive drugs.”
Against all odds
When Aaron Narine was 17 days old he suffered renal failure. Because his mother donated a kidney, Aaron was able to celebrate his 17th birthday on June 29.
“When we actually found out he had a problem with his kidneys he was just 17 days old. That is how long he has been battling it,” she said. Narine said she realised something was wrong with Aaron when he started to get extremely high fever.
“At that moment we took him to the emergency department and they ran their tests but they did not know it was actually his kidneys. They thought it was just an infection,” she said.
“When they found out he became really critical and he spent a few days in the Intensive Care Unit and they ran a lot of tests,” she said.
“Over the years he was on medication, in and out of hospital, sometimes two weeks, sometimes a month,” she said.
In September 2010 Aaron got his kidney transplant. He was only 10-years-old at the time and was one of the country’s youngest transplant recipients.
Narine said even though doctors wrote off her son’s survival she never stopped believing. Aaron was in primary school when he had the transplant done. Physically he recovered quickly.
“It affected his school life. Being that young he was in and out, he missed a lot of school and that caused him to write the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination really late, two years ago. He was like 15-year-old when he wrote SEA,” Narine said.
Aaron will enter form three of the Tunapuna Government Secondary School tomorrow.
He is expected to choose CSEC subjects this year.
“In his school life he has had a lot of setbacks so it is slow but we still have him going with the pace and trying to do whatever he could do,” Narine said.
NOTHING TO LOSE
Former health minister John Rahael said deceased organ donors have nothing to lose.
“A lot of these persons who have died from gunshots, some of them are young and their organs are still very good organs. Obviously if they die they have nothing to lose, but to help their other fellow man to live, so it is really saving a life. When you give an organ to someone else you are saving that person’s life and it is at no cost to you and it does not affect the organ donor,” Rahael said.
Rahael praised Dr Lesley-Ann Roberts and NOTU staff for the work they have been doing in this country.
He said when he was health minister he signed up to become an organ donor. He is urging others to do the same.
Rahael said once the population is educated about organ donation he is certain people would sign up.
To date 155 transplants have been done through the NOTU, with some 26 from deceased donors. There are 101 people who do not have donors and are hoping to benefit from a deceased donor.
According to the NOTU, approximately 500 nationals are in need of kidney transplants and that number grows by approximately 40 every year with a “very large number” of them dying annually while waiting.