One year ago today, February 28, an
extraordinary young woman died. She was one of my daughter’s best friends and
was a big part of our lives. Not a day
goes by that I don’t think of her, and as this anniversary day approached, I
have been surprised by how hard is the effort to hold back the tears.
Kaila was the bravest person I have ever
known. Starting with an aggressive
cancer tumour as a toddler, she faced life-threatening illness after
life-threatening illness. In a sense her
life was one long struggle with cancer.
The chemotherapy when she was a baby so weakened her heart that when she
was in Grade 8, she suffered heart failure.
In Grade 9, she had a heart transplant.
It gave her back her life, but for an unbearably short burst.
No one could say she hadn’t experienced
that life to the fullest. Despite
continuing surgeries, to correct the way her foot could not be flat to the
ground, and additional tumours and challenges big and small, she took life head-on
with the spirit of a conqueror. She
entered the Transplant Games in Thailand and came in first in the
bicycle race. She and her amazing mom
travelled to Hawaii,
thanks to Make a Wish Foundation. A Grade 8 school trip took Kaila and my
daughter and friends to France.
She came with my daughter and me on many
trips to Nova Scotia or by train to New York. When I was tired, she’d insist there was more
to see and no time to waste. She was right.
She died in her first year at McGill. Her body rejected that wonderful
new heart and there was nothing anyone could do. The hospital had never had so many people, so
many young people and their families staying outside a room in a 60 hour vigil.
So in an act of Remembrance, I am posting a
blog to ask that we get active on the issue of organ donations and do more to
end childhood cancers.
Recently, CBC's The Sunday Edition with
Michael Enright looked at the issue and noted that Canada lags far behind other
countries in the rates with which Canadians sign their organ donation
authorizations on driver’s licenses. We
rank in the bottom half of developed nations in which organ transplants are
performed. I know it is a provincial
issue and we are a federal party, but we do have a role in increasing
awareness. A number of dedicated organ
donation activists have approached me with the idea that we should have a
reverse onus. Only those people who
actively sign a card to say they do not want to be an organ donor should be
excluded. A lack of action in signing a
card would then be seen as consent. That
is one approach. I like it better than
the one discussed on The Sunday Edition,
that a market be created where people would be paid for donations.
A new heart transplant could not have saved
Kaila. But the lack of one would have
taken her from us five years earlier.
And that damn cancer. We need to
ask questions about the rise in childhood cancers. I am in the last generation to think that
cancer is not a childhood illness. The
horrible reality is that the largest lifetime dose a North American receives of
toxic chemicals is between conception and birth. A woman’s body burden of toxic waste can
cross the placenta and compromise the life she will love more than her own.
We need to eliminate chemicals from our
society that kill. There are generally
non-carcinogenic alternatives, but we do not have a regulatory system that sets
goals like “eliminating carcinogens.” We are now seduced by the notion of “risk
assessments” and “risk management.” Keep
using carcinogens, but just assure the public the dose they receive is too
small to cause cancer. That is not good
enough. We need to restore the
fundamental principles of public health that insist on actions to prevent
unnecessary risks.
Please, take a few steps in the next week. Sign your organ donor card. Press for pesticide bans on lawns and
parks. Check and see what toxic
substances are used in your kid’s school. In Kaila’s memory, please.