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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, March 5, 2010 · 24 Living Oakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Phone: 905-337-5560 Fax: 905-337-5571 e-mail: ablackburn@oakvillebeaver.com Oakville woman changed the odds to win C hristine de Koning gave up a kidney for her partner Wayne Tucker. Her sacrifice was not even an even trade -- she was not a donor match for Tucker, but hoped her gift of a kidney to someone else would move Tucker up on the transplant list he was on -- a list that could be as long as seven years. "Whoopie! It worked. We got the call Jan. 29 from St. Mike's that they found a kidney match," said de Koning. After a 12-hour wait while lots of testing took place, it was deemed a go and Tucker was wheeled into surgery, said de Koning. After more than two months, de Koning herself is back at work, minus a kidney. And Tucker came home from hospital, no longer facing dialysis because he has a new kidney. Tucker was on a deceased donor list at St. Michael's Hospital where the wait could be as long as seven years -- years doctors told him he didn't have. De Koning, 38, refused to accept those odds, so she changed the rules. Her surgery occurred in early November at St. Michael's. She said it was a decision that was two years in the making, not done overnight. "What she is doing is saving my life. Christine is my hero," Tucker told The Oakville Beaver late in 2009. For the past two years, Tucker, 39, had his name on a national paired exchange list, which means live donors essentially `trade' organs. However, the list proved unsuccessful for Tucker. Friends and family were also tested to see if they were a match. Again, no success. Last June, Tucker had a lung biopsy and developed a life-threatening complication. He began dialysis and was put on St. Mike's deceased donor list as a result. That's also when de Koning volunteered for a special donor program called a list exchange at St. Mike's. It saw her donate one of her kidneys to a recipient at the top of the waiting list for her blood group. In exchange for her donation, Tucker was bumped to the top of his blood group's list. Tucker, who was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 14, has long battled with the disease, which has left unbelievable. I can't imagine not being a diabetic after these 25 years." Thanks to de Koning who has three children -- Samantha, 15, Curtis, 11, and Maddie, 10 -- he no longer faces 10 hours of dialysis every night. "Surgery went well, and now, he is doing not too bad. The new kidney has taken, it took a few days for it to do anything, so we were waiting breathlessly and then it started working," said de Koning. De Koning had laparoscopic surgery to remove her left kidney. Following that, she was off work two months to recover. That took longer than she at first anticipated. De Koning had healthy kidneys so she isn't worried about living with only one. She does want to meet her kidney's recipient though. His name is Nicholas. "The gentleman who I donated to, I got a letter from him in December and ... when we were at St. Mike's, I gave the transplant team my reply back to him, with a copy of the Oakville Beaver and the story. "For now, we have to communicate through their offices, as no personal info is allowed to be exchanged, so if they allow the article, at least he will know my first and last name and what town I live, if he did some digging, he could contact me directly," said de Koning. Now, according to de Koning, Tucker has been approved as a good candidate for a pancreas transplant. He must be tracked through several months of recovery before he is referred to Toronto General Hospital where he'll face a two to three-year wait for a new pancreas. Just this week, Tucker had day surgery to have the dialysis tube removed from his stomach (which was great news, said de Koning) and to have the stent removed that was holding the valve open between his bladder and new kidney. "That will take a few days for him to heal from, and from there, no more surgeries planned until we get heavily involved in his pancreas transplant," said de Koning. The one-year point is also crucial to eliminating the potential for his body to reject the new kidney. One organ and tissue donor can save up to eight lives, according to the Ontario Trillium Gift of Life Network, however few people sign their donor card. "I know it is still an overwhelming feeling to receive someone else's kidney...." said de Koning. -- with files from Tina Depko OAKVILLE BEAVER FILE PHOTO WHOOPIE!: Christine de Koning donated her kidney to a stranger in order to expedite her boyfriend Wayne Tucker's wait for a new kidney. It worked and now the Oakville couple is recovering after each of their surgeries. "Whoopie! It worked. We got the call Jan. 29 from St. Mike's that they found a kidney match ... Surgery went well, and now, he is doing not too bad. The new kidney has taken, it took a few days for it to do anything, so we were waiting breathlessly and then it started working." n Christine de Koning scars -- limited vision in one eye and various health issues. With his new kidney, it will be a wait and see game until Tucker is stable and can get a pancreas transplant -- which will get rid of the diabetes. He has been told the waiting list is approximately three years. "I'll be starting a new life possibly as early as age 43," he said. "It is kind of