The valley of my childhood

This is me and my childhood friend Glenn. We were pretty much inseparable from stroller to school bus. Our parents were good friends and we lived one block away from each other. Lots of holidays and summer days and nothing special days were spent together until we started school – he at the local English Catholic school and me at the local English Protestant one.

We used to go exploring in our neighbourhood, climbing rocks and trees, poking sticks into dark holes; we snuck popsicles from my house and then his on hot summer afternoons; we went tobogganing at the nearby hill; we played board games in our pyjamas; we divvied up our Halloween treats, bartering what we didn’t want.

As is the usual course of life we made new friends once we started school and began to drift apart. There were still birthdays and Christmases but we saw less and less of each other as the years flew by. Glenn and his family moved away when we were about nine or ten. After that we rarely saw each other aside from the occasional visit during summer vacations but by then our devoted childhood friendship had faded into our parents’ photo albums.

I recently found out that Glenn died last summer from complications of a second kidney transplant surgery. I had always known that Glenn had diabetes. He was diagnosed when we were little kids, but I never really knew much about it. I knew he had to have needles – that was about the extent of my awareness. It never occurred to me back then that he could die.

It’s been probably 20… 25 years since I last saw Glenn. My favourite memories of him feature a grinning, mischievous boy with dark unruly curls. I hope he’s still climbing rocks and trees, and exploring, and finding new adventures.

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WALKINSHAW, Glenn Kevin 1962-2008

On July 16, 2008 at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, QC at the age of 46 after complications from transplant surgery, Glenn passed away peacefully with his family by his side.

Glenn is survived by his mother Lorraine (nee Ward) Walkinshaw, predeceased by his father Albert. Beloved brother to Brad Walkinshaw (Mary), of Montreal, QC, and Jill Walkinshaw (Steven) of Orleans. Glenn will be fondly remembered by his nieces and nephews Rini and Amanda of Montreal, QC and Alexandria and Anderson of Orleans.

The family gratefully thanks the Dialysis Unit of the Riverside Hospital of Ottawa for their kindness and nursing care, and also the Royal Victoria Hospital Transplant team and the ICU Medical and Nursing teams for their care of Glenn since May 19, 2008.

A Mass in the presence of the ashes will be held at St. Patrick's Basilica, Kent at Nepean Sts., Ottawa, at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 with burial in the Botanical Gardens at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa.

In memory of Glenn, please consider the Juvenile Diabetes Association and remember to be kind to everyone. Rest in Peace, dear Glenn. We Miss You. "Live Free and Ride".
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When a stranger calls...

It was the telephone that woke me up, jangling insistently like a rude alarm clock.

I sat up, struggling to find my even keel in the middle-of-the-night darkness. My throat tightened as I hesitantly said hello. Phone calls in the middle of the night are never good news… or so I thought.

“May I please speak with Christopher Dixon?” asked the voice at the other end.
“May I ask who’s calling?” [at such an ungodly hour, asked the voice inside my head.]
“It’s the transplant unit. We have a donor kidney for Christopher.”

I breathed, listening to make sure I remembered that moment.

Chris was a very sound sleeper and I had to literally shake him awake, he hadn’t even heard the phone. “It’s the transplant unit, they have a kidney.” I said – quite calmly in retrospect – before I handed him the phone, making sure he was awake.

We were both wide awake now. I sat on the bed beside Chris and never took my eyes off his face as he answered and asked questions for a few minutes. When he hung up, we looked at each other, our eyes filled with hope, anxiety, nervousness, love.

Surprisingly, you’re not expected to run red lights when you get that call. “Take your time, don’t panic, bring a few things in a small overnight bag… we’ll see you when you get here.” And so we did just that. I packed socks, underwear, pyjama pants, razor, toothbrush/toothpaste, my list of people to call, and a roll of quarters that we had kept in the drawer for just this occasion.

We were out the door in 15 minutes flat. The taxi ride to the hospital was quiet. We held hands as we watched darkened houses rush by our windows.

The hospital was brightly lit but the hallways were empty as we quickly made our way up to the transplant unit.

Things happen pretty quickly once you get there. You’re assigned a room – always private, for fear of infection in immune-suppressed transplant patients. Blood is drawn for last-minute tests. X-rays are done to check for infections. Electrodes are mapped out across the body to monitor heart activity on an EKG machine.

In between tests, you sit and wait. Your mind racing. Your heart racing. The thumping isn’t loud enough to drown out the fears, the excitement, the what if’s. Transplants are not a miracle cure – they’re a therapy, an interim measure. They don’t last forever. The surgery – like any surgery – is risky. Chris and I had had all those conversations many times. So we sat and we waited, wondering which room along the hall sheltered the other anxious kidney recipient. I watched the sky turn indigo and then golden pink as the sun crept up to meet us at the horizon.

I called Chris’ parents to tell them that we were at the hospital, that there was a donor kidney for Chris, that I would call later when I had an update.

I remember the nurse coming in. “I’m sorry, but the kidney isn’t a close enough match.”

Eyes blinking. Empty silence. As suddenly as it began, it was over.

How to put into words that floor-falling-away feeling? The adrenaline and exhaustion suddenly colliding inside your head, your heart, your stomach which minutes before had been churning with anxious elation. Sitting in the patient lounge, our arms limply encircling each other, as the rising sun shot through the drapes and bled down the wall.

We quietly checked out and walked down the hall, leaving ‘our’ kidney to the next candidate on the list. The list really is life…

The rest of that day is a fog in my memory. I know that we both stayed home from work, sleeping a bit, eating a bit. I know I called Chris’ parents to break the news but I don’t remember calling them.

I’ve never had a miscarriage and I can’t pretend that it’s the same feeling but it’s the closest thing I can imagine – coming home empty-handed and empty-hearted instead of joyful. It was a very quiet day, a sad day.

We went for a walk and thought about the person who had died, their family who had consented to organ donation – who were they? We thought of the other people like us who had received long-awaited calls for lungs and heart and liver and corneas and kidneys. Were they in surgery or in recovery by now? Their families waiting anxiously for news of a successful surgery, preparing for the possibly bumpy road to full recovery.

We wondered when the next call might come.
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Happy World Kidney Day!

Today is World Kidney Day.

Are your kidneys healthy?

Did you know that over 500 million people world-wide have some form of kidney damage?

Did you know that high blood pressure and diabetes (Type 1 and 2) are leading causes of chronic kidney disease in developing countries like Canada?

Did you know that over 1.5 million people worldwide are currently kept alive through either haemo or peritoneal dialysis, or transplantation and that this number is predicted to double within the next 10 years?

Do you have one or more of these risk factors for chronic kidney disease?

• high blood pressure or diabetes
• family history of kidney disease
• history of heart attack, stroke, or other blood vessel disease
• over 50 years of age
• First Nations or Asian ancestry
• obesity
• smoking
• family history of high blood pressure or diabetes

If so, please speak with a health professional about how to reduce your risk of developing chronic kidney disease. Do it for Chris. Do it for yourself!

The Amazing Kidnerellis!

2 x 2 = wonderful

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Canadian Blood Services announced on February 12 that it has officially launched the national Living Donor Paired Exchange Registry.

This is wonderful news for families waiting for kidney transplants. Research has shown that living donor kidneys are often more successful than cadaveric transplants and patients' families and friends are encouraged to be tested for compatibility. Unfortunately, many patients are unable to find compatible donors among family or friends and thus remain on the transplant waiting list, sometimes for many years, until a suitable match becomes available from a deceased donor.

The registry already has 23 pairs of donors/recipients registred through pilot programs in Ontario, Alberta, and BC and other provinces will be added shortly. [It is unclear whether Quebec will be included in the registry. The province maintains an agency called Héma-Québec which operates a parallel but separate blood and human tissue service.]

This national registry will open up a much wider pool of willing and eager donors who can more quickly be matched with closely-matched recipients, it will enable those remaining on the waiting list to receive cadaveric kidneys more quickly, it may offer opportunities for altruistic donors who are not paired with anyone, and will ensure a more equitable access to donor organs across the country.

I had begun the testing process to see if I was a possible donor match for Chris but because of his unstable health, he was withdrawn from the waiting list waiting list (don't ask!). If his health had been stable and I had ultimately been found not to be a match for him, I'm sure that Chris would have consented to us being placed on the Paired Exchange Registry. A pair of strangers somewhere in Canada would have possibly been our match. What a lovely thought... what a wonderful gift to give and to receive!
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Happy birth day

Today is Chris' birthday. I'm not sure what to do, it seems wrong not to mark the occasion somehow. It's a very special day for me, for his family, for his friends because that was the day he came into the world - on his way towards coming into our lives.

We're all changed in some way because of having Chris in our lives. Just as we are by having each other in our lives. We may not know how much but each tie makes a difference... in how we look at the world, in how we think about the events that transpire around us, in how we treat each other. And in turn we affect others - even those we may not know by name.

In that spirit, a group of us including Chris' family and some close friends will once again be walking in memory of Chris in the Kidney Foundation's annual organ donation awareness campaign on Sunday, September 21.

Last year the walk took place on our first wedding anniversary and our team of 16 (including 2 dogs) raised over $4000 towards this important cause. The weather was perfect and we had a great time, met some really nice people, and enjoyed a BBQ as well!

In honour of Chris' birthday, consider organ donation and - most importantly - talk with your family about your wishes. Many people do not realize that their family's decision will be the final one regardless of what is indicated on their donor card or driver's license.

Please consider making a donation to team Carpe Diem Chris in memory of him and the incredible gift of life that organ donation can offer to the thousands of families still waiting.

National organ donation registry

Yesterday it was announced that Canada will finally develop a national organ donation registry. This registry will replace the many provincial and regional networks which currently manage life-saving surgeries for thousands of Canadians surviving with kidney, liver, lung, heart, and other organ failure.

Three years ago, Chris was near or at the top of the organ donation waiting list in Ottawa. Since Ontario alone has five completely separate and locally managed transplant regions - each with its own waiting lists - he was removed from that list shortly before we moved because he would no longer be living in the Ottawa region. It was our understanding that he would be assessed soon after his arrival in London and placed on their regional organ donation waiting list.

He lingered a jaw-dropping 14 months on the assessment waiting list before being scheduled for the full-day series of appointments to meet with the various members of the transplant assessment team: co-ordinator, social worker, nephrologists, transplant surgeons, etc. With a single registry, his file could simply have been transferred without being removed from the waiting list.

There were many times when he would give me an update of the latest anticipated wait time before the assessment that I lost all patience with the snail's pace bureaucracy of our healthcare system. I fumed and swore and railed on, demanding answers from Chris that he did not have. He was too patient for my fervent caregiver-driven frustration but it was his body and his condition and I knew I had to accept that.

Over my years living with and loving Chris, I came to understand how he – like anyone who faces a health crisis - had to steer his own course, comfortable with his own fully informed decisions and full participation as the key member of his healthcare team. This was the philosophy at the core of his PhD research interest.

In the end he never made it back onto an active organ donation waiting list because of the complications he developed from Encapsulating Peritoneal Sclerosis. The assessment team was waiting to see if he would respond to treatment before possibly undergoing the strain of transplant surgery and whether it might also jeopardize the precious donor kidney.

The new national organ donation registry will hopefully ease painful and frustrating wait times such as Chris and I endured. It will also open up the pool of available deceased donor organs to the best-suited candidates – no matter where they live – thus ensuring the best possible matches as well as creating opportunities for paired exchange donations. The new registry will also hopefully increase awareness of growing organ donation needs.

One issue that I am emphatic about is the validity of a deceased donor’s wishes over the possible dissension of their surviving family members. If someone has made the decision to donate their organs after death, that decision should be as binding as their will or any other legal document they made in anticipation of their death. Obviously healthcare staff must handle these situations with delicacy and empathy but in the end the deceased person’s wishes should be fulfilled.

Be a lifesaver. Sign your organ donation card or mark that choice on your health insurance card or driver’s license and – most importantly - talk with your family about this issue.
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How to live forever

Last night I was going through some papers and found a faded newspaper clipping that I had squirreled away many years ago. It's a poem that spoke to me about the greater meaning of life at a time when I had yet to experience the pain of losses that were to come.

It rings even more true now...

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To Remember Me
By Robert Noel Test (1926-1994)

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying.

At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.

Give my heart to a person whose own heart has pain.

Give my blood to the teen-ager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain.

Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all my prejudice against my fellow man.

Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.

If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
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"A gift is a gift, no matter how long it lasts."

"Grief comes in waves," wrote Joan Didion in her remarkable book The Year of Magical Thinking.

It can also blindside you when you least expect it. I had been thinking of writing about the spate of babies bursting into my world this year, the circle of life, all that kind of stuff, but I'm putting that aside for another day.

As I sit here writing my eyes are filled with tears, my throat tight and my heart filled with anguish and sadness. Why? Because this morning I turned a page in the Focus section of the Globe & Mail and read words that broke my heart, unleashing a torrent of emotions and memories of Chris' death.

Amelia Bruce died on April 5. She was 27 years old.

I didn't know Amelia but last August her grandfather, Toronto writer Stephen Gauer, wrote a very personal and touching article in the G&M about his experience as a living kidney donor for Amelia. He wrote lovingly of his sunny, resilient, smart, and outgoing grand-daughter and how she lived her life like any young woman, despite - or perhaps because of - her kidney failure.

Amelia received a donor kidney in 1997 but in 2005 it began to fail and she faced the prospect of going back on dialysis and a wait of up to eight years for a second transplant. Her grandfather volunteered to be tested and was found to be a good match and on June 26, 2007 they both went into surgery. The transplant was a success but months later something went wrong and Amelia began to experience a series of setbacks that frequently sent her to the hospital. In recent months though her health seemed to stabilize and she was looking forward to moving into her own apartment which her grandfather was painting for her. But then it all went terribly wrong.

Stephen Gauer's follow-up article in today's G&M is entitled Goodbye Amelia. It is a raw and heart-breaking love letter to a little girl and a young woman. It's also a personal recount of his own journey alongside Amelia watching her growing up and what it meant to say goodbye to his grand-daughter. He responds to those who asked him if he regretted giving her his kidney, "I believe with all my heart and soul that if donating a kidney to Amelia made her life better, easier, less painful, more hopeful, happier, less exhausting for even one day out of those 284, it was worth it."

As you can imagine, many thoughts crashed through my mind as I read this heart-breaking news today. So many similarities resounded, odd little things like Amelia's mother hearing her alarm ringing on and on and discovering her daughter dead in bed. The night before he died, Chris had set his alarm for an early wake-up. When I went back to the apartment later the next afternoon to pick up some clothes, I froze in my tracks upon hearing the clock-radio blindly roaring to an empty bed. It had been playing all day.

The article recounts Amelia's mother's anguished protests, "This is completely wrong. This is bullshit."; Amelia's memorial service where over 130 people came to share their grief, love, and loss; Stephen's wonderment at the unexpected serendipity of gaining a delightful grand-daughter when he met and fell in love with Amelia's grandmother; all these experiences touched off a firestorm in my own heart...

Memories of my own horror at realizing that the moment we knew would some day come had actually come far too soon; trying to reach Chris' parents and not knowing what I was going to say when they answered the phone; the hundreds of kind, supportive people who came to Chris' visitation and memorial service; and some of the strange things people said to me out of discomfort or tactlessness.

I'm drained by this day. I've cried for Amelia, for Chris, for myself. So many unfulfilled dreams, so much pain, so much love.
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Gift of life

This is National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week (April 20-27)

As many of you know, Chris was lucky enough to receive a kidney from an anonymous deceased donor in 1994. Unfortunately, after seven years the kidney failed in 2001 and Chris went back on dialysis. His doctors had hoped that he would be able to receive a second kidney transplant. His dad, his brother, and I all volunteered to be tested to see if any of us were compatible to be living donors for Chris. Unfortunately he passed away before that could happen but his corneas were donated and he was able to give the gift of sight to two individuals in Ontario.

According to Medline Plus, the organs and tissues from one deceased donor can save or help as many as 50 people! Organs which can be donated include:

• Internal organs such as kidneys, heart, liver, pancreas, intestines, lungs
• Skin
• Bone and bone marrow
• Corneas

Please take a few minutes this week to consider your wishes regarding organ and tissue donation, sign your organ donor card, and - most importantly - talk with your families and friends about this important decision. After your death, they will have the final say on whether your wishes are fulfilled.

Gift of Life
Canadian Blood Services
Canadian Association of Transplantation ~ Public Information
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It's about the behaviour, not the orientation!

Last week I was so mad I could have spit. I probably did when my jaw dropped open in stunned reaction to the belated news that Health Canada had released new standards for organ donation in December. The department announced that, among other things, men who have had sex with another man within the past five years will not be considered as organ donors!

Did I just wake up in 1988? Are we still having this conversation? In the early dark days of the AIDS epidemic gay men were the primary figures in that war. As the epidemic cuts a swath of death across the world, we now know that it is not sexual orientation that makes a person an HIV carrier or more susceptible. It is a person's behaviour that makes them at risk for HIV and AIDS, not their sexual orientation!

Behaviours such as promiscuous and/or unprotected sexual activity and shared needles; behaviours about things that we don’t talk about in ‘polite’ society. The HIV virus loves our shame and our dark secrets, our extra-marital philandering, our little junk habit, our secret thrill of riding ‘bare-back’. Meanwhile, all gay men are once again being singled out by preposterously archaic assumptions in poorly written medical guidelines.

The reaction has been vocal, swift, and broad-based. Most transplant units across Canada have announced that despite these new guidelines, they will continue to assess organ donations based on behavioural risk-assessment guidelines. Given the ever-increasing shortage of organs needed for transplants, Health Canada should have given this issue more thought. Shame on them.

Toronto Sun - Letter of the Day by Ontario Minister of Health, George Smitherman
Toronto Star - "Most gays ruled out as organ donors"
Globe & Mail - "New organ donation rules don't exclude gay men"
CBC News - "Sexually active gay men no longer allowed to donate organs"
CBC, This Hour Has 22 Minutes for a refreshingly satiric perspective on Health Canada's guidelines [This Week's Video Highlights > select Jan 15 > scroll down and click on "Organ Donor Policy"]
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A gift worth the odds

Today will be a sad and difficult day for a very dear friend of mine and her extended family. Her uncle passed away on January 4th from complications following kidney transplant surgery.

For those patients who are eligible and interested, organ transplants from a living or deceased donor can offer a new lease on life. For some, like liver or heart recipients, organ transplants may be their only chance for living. Organ, tissue, and blood donations are literally a gift of life.

My friend's uncle had lived with kidney failure and been on dialysis for over 25 years. He was a difficult match for organ donation but because of recent improvements in technology and research his wife was finally able to be a living kidney donor for him. Many would agree that she gave him the ultimate gift of love.

Sadly, due to a series of complications, the transplant never fully 'took' and my friend's uncle struggled to recover in the hospital for several months before passing away from heart failure.

All of us who are part of the organ donation world know the risks and possible complications involved. Organ transplants are not a cure. Organ transplants do not last forever. But organ transplants can offer many people with life-threatening or chronic conditions very good odds of living a more 'normal' life. A life where they can work full-time, play with their children, go on vacations, eat and drink a wide variety of foods, walk half a kilometre without resting. A life where they don't have to go to a clinic three days a week or spend weeks in intensive care. A life that most of us take for granted.

In memory of Gary and Chris and the thousands of people still waiting for organ transplants, please consider organ donation, sign your card, and - most importantly - discuss your wishes with your family.

Rest in peace Gary.

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GARY STEPHEN LOGAN

On January 4, 2008 at the Toronto General Hospital, Gary Stephen Logan, loving husband to Marisa Logan, succumbed to complications related to a kidney transplant at the age of fifty-three.

A memorial service will be held at 1:15 p.m. on Tuesday, January 15 at the Cemetery Notre-Dame-des-Neiges to celebrate his life. Our family wishes to thank everyone for their kind and supportive words and gestures.

In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations to the Renal Transplant Research and Education Fund at the Toronto General Hospital.
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If only...

When I look back on Chris and my time together, I have few regrets. We were lucky, we lived in the moment. Not necessarily because of Chris' condition but in spite of it. But of course there were things that I wish had been different…

• if only we’d known that it probably wasn’t mysteriously persistent heartburn but perhaps early signs of aortic pressure which led to the dissection that killed him
• if only an angiogram or even an ultrasound had been done of his arm before he underwent surgery to create a fistula that took months to heal, was painful to access, and ultimately unusable
  
• if only he’d started on a high dose of prednisone last fall
• if only he’d never developed encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis (EPS)
• if only we’d started home hemodialysis last year
• if only he and one of his doctors had had a more communicative and respectful relationship, his fluid overload would have been addressed sooner when his blood pressure was already sky-high
• if only he hadn’t had to wait 14 months before being assessed to be put on the transplant waiting list after moving
• if only he hadn't had a bout of peritonitis, perhaps no EPS?
  
• if only one of the two transplant calls in Ottawa had been a good match
• if only he had been offered home hemodialysis instead of peritoneal dialysis, perhaps no EPS?
• if only my parents hadn’t been in poor health and lived so far away, I could have been tested to be a kidney donor years earlier
• if only his drug dosage had been more carefully monitored when he got his first transplant, he wouldn’t have suffered toxicity and the kidney might have lasted years longer
• if only his blood pressure and kidney function had been more closely checked as a youth
• if only his condition had been diagnosed at age 2 or 3 instead of 9 or 10, his kidneys would have suffered so much less damage, he might not ever have needed dialysis
• if only he hadn’t had a fluke birth defect
• if only…
  

But all these things did come to pass and none of us – Chris included – can take the blame for them. Because despite any second guessing and misplaced guilt, all these experiences contributed to making Chris the person he was: strong, patient, curious, tolerant, wry, generous, empathetic, and loving. Were they fate, chance, flukes, destiny, mistakes, oversights… who knows. The only thing to do is what Chris usually did: learn and let go and love.
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First wedding anniversary

Today is my first wedding anniversary. It's been a day of very mixed emotions...

This morning a group of us including Chris' family and friends participated in the Kidney Foundation's annual Be a Lifesaver Walk for Organ Donation Awareness. The weather was gorgeous and the turnout and funds raised were about double last year's figures! I was overwhelmed by the generosity of the people who joined my team and came out to walk with me in support of this wonderful cause. I was also overwhelmed the generosity of our sponsors - the final tally for our team, Carpe Diem Chris, was over $4000 towards transplant research! I feel that Chris was with us every step of the way.


Of course, it's hard not to think of this day last year - our wedding day, when we promised to love and cherish "as long as we both shall live". We never imagined it would be so very short a marriage when we had so much love to share; when everything in our lives finally seemed to be falling into place; when the future looked so full of happiness and promise.

Our wedding ceremony also included a request for a Declaration of Support from family and friends as read by our officiant:

As their families and friends, you form the community of support that surrounds Sandra and Christopher. Each of you, by your presence here today, is being called upon to uphold them in honouring and loving each other. Always stand beside them, never between them. Offer them your love and support, not your judgement. Encourage them with your kindness and loving hearts, and honour this marriage into which they have come to be joined today.

In the past several months, this support has been absolute and it is the reason I'm able to get out of bed in the morning; the reason I know that - one day - I will look forward to the future.

I will always be thankful for Chris coming into my life and I will always celebrate this anniversary of love. I love you & I miss you, ваша Кошенька.

First dance, "Rainbow Connection" Sept. 23, 2006
[thanks to Charlene for the video clip!]
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Gift of sight

Today I received a letter that filled my eyes with tears of gratitude. It was a thank you letter from the Eye Bank of Canada, notifying me that Chris' donated corneas have restored the gift of sight to two individuals in Ontario. "Your husband's legacy has given light where once there was darkness and hope where once there was despair."

Chris and I were both long-time advocates of organ donation awareness. As many of you know, Chris received a kidney in 1994 from a deceased donor whose grieving family gave him that treasured and generous gift. Now Chris himself has in turn become a donor, giving the gift of his 20/20 vision.

In honour of Chris, please consider organ donation and - most importantly - talk to your family about your wishes.

Organ donation awareness

September 23 will be my first wedding anniversary. Sadly I will not be in Toronto with Chris indulging at gourmet restaurants and slumbering on luxury linens.

Instead, a group of us including Chris' family and some close friends will be walking as a team on that day in memory of Chris in the annual Be a Lifesaver Walk for Organ Donation Awareness campaign. Last year, Chris, his mom Janis, her dog Jeeter, and I walked for the first time. We had a great time, met some really nice people, and enjoyed a BBQ as well!

I urge you to consider organ donation and - most importantly - talk with your family about your wishes. Many people do not realize that their family's decision will be the final one regardless of what is indicated on their donor card or driver's license.

Please consider making a donation to team Carpe Diem Chris in memory of him and the incredible gift of life that organ donation can offer to the thousands of families still waiting.

Strange & sad coincidence

Today I found out that the husband of an acquaintance of mine died very suddenly the day after Chris. I had called to tell her of Chris' passing but after a stunned moment she told me that her husband had also passed away the very next day. Both of our husbands collapsed at home due to coronary crises with no warning whatsoever. We were at the same hospital, on the same day - she holding vigil beside her husband in ICU for three days before he died, me in Emergency for one hour before I was told what I already knew.

We had discovered upon first meeting that both our spouses had received transplants - her husband a heart, Chris a kidney. This unique shared experience and all that it implied formed a bond that needed no explanation. We kept up-to-date on each other's lives and spouses health on a semi-regular basis. Never did we suspect we would both join the young widows club so soon and at the same time!

To add additional coincidence to the story both memorial services were held on the same day in the same funeral chapel - ours in the late morning and theirs immediately afterwards in the early afternoon!

I am still in shock from hearing her news. I burst into tears when she told me - not just because I was so upset for her loss but also because I knew all to well exactly how she felt. Hearing the news of course also tore open my own freshly raw memories of that terrible day when I lost the love of my life.

In the past month and half I am one of three young people I know who have lost spouses. Up until now I have only known one friend who lost a husband at a young age. It seems all I hear about is death after death after death and I'm not even 45! So much heartbreak and unfulfilled promise... One can only ask WHY?! So much so try and accept...

Chris' obituary

This obituary was my gift to Chris - my final love letter to him.

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Dixon, Christopher Mathew

Suddenly at home, at age 34, in the arms of his beloved wife on July 2, 2007. Predeceased by his paternal grandparents and his maternal grandfather, he leaves treasured memories with his best friend and soul mate Sandra, his grandmother Connie Lou Moore, his parents Janis and Dennis Dixon, and his younger brother Ryan. He will also be sadly missed by extended family and many dear friends.

Chris was born in London but grew up all over southwestern Ontario as well as northern Ontario where his parents were both teachers. There, he gained a life-long love of nature and an appreciation of the sense of balance found in nature helped him find peace in his own life. His appetite for life-long learning began early at the Little Red School House in Lambeth and he continued to devour books and absorb knowledge throughout his life as he progressed towards completion of his PhD.

His steel-trap memory was legendary and he wielded it to great advantage in such diverse settings as family arguments and trivia contests. Chris passionately loved music and it was here that he was most able to find expression and comfort for all of life’s ups and downs. In recent years Chris developed a love of cooking and nurtured a secret dream of going to chef school. He kept family and friends laughing heartily with his brilliantly dry humour.

Chris lived his life with quiet fortitude, never wanting pity or hero worship for his kidney failure. His short life was a gift to all those who knew him and he will live on in our hearts forever. Special thanks to Andrew House, Jane Ridley, and the entire UH dialysis team for their ongoing support. In honour of Christopher, please consider organ donation and discuss your wishes with your family. In lieu of flowers, please give generously to the Kidney Foundation of Canada.