Neighbour, co-worker donates kidney to Rivett after lengthy search

BY DENNY SCOTT

Dungannon’s Cassandra Rivett has found a living kidney donor in neighbour Amanda Haak, which means she will have 15 to 20 years before she needs to worry about her kidney again.

Rivett has been diagnosed with Berger’s disease and, last year, explained to The Citizen that complications with the disease had led to her needing regular dialysis treatments as well as a donor kidney.

Rivett had no symptoms, but a blood test resulted in the diagnosis, and, shortly after, she had a three-week stay at Victoria Hospital in London where she found out that 90 per cent of her kidneys had been destroyed by complications with the disease. Originally, she didn’t need dialysis, but an adverse reaction to medication that could have helped her without dialysis resulted in her needing to go for treatments, three times a week, starting last June.

Rivett originally spoke to The Citizen in regards to a fundraiser that was scheduled by her friends and family to help support her during the dialysis.

At that point, she said that a donor, either living or from a cadaver, would change her life, as a living donor’s kidney could allow her to live a relatively normal life for 15 to 20 years, at which point another kidney donation will be necessary, while a deceased donor’s kidney would give her eight to 12 years. At the time, however, she said she would be waiting at least two to three years regardless of where her donor liver came from. She said there was a two-to-three-year wait period for deceased donors in the area and, even if she found a matched living donor, there were years of tests necessary before the match could be confirmed.
Fortunately for Rivett, however, Haak was already undergoing those tests. 

“I was going through the process to be an anonymous liver donor,” she said. “I had already had many of the tests done in Toronto.”

Haak knows Rivett’s family, saying when she first moved to Dungannon, she had to borrow a shovel from her neighbour, Rivett’s father. Haak also works at at the Compass Minerals Mine in Goderich, where Rivett works.
“They are a really good family, and very community-oriented,” Haak said of Rivett’s family.

She said she didn’t know Rivett still needed a donor, but was happy to help out when she realized that wasn’t the case.
“I was going through that process, but I didn’t realize that Cassie hadn’t found anyone,” she said. “I thought I had heard that she had found a donor.”

When Haak found out that Rivett didn’t have a donor, she said it was an easy decision to make to help out her neighbour.
“The main reason I’m doing it is because I can,” she said. “I’m healthy, we have OHIP and I have the support from my family, friends, place of employment and community.”

Rivett said she was humbled by the great news, and ecstatic about the fact that Haak was already through most of the necessary tests. She said that the donor surgery was set for earlier this year, but both Rivett and Haak came down with COVID-19, resulting in the surgery being deferred until June 1. 

“There were only two or three things to finalize, but then the process got shifted a month and a half,” she said. “We both need to be healthy, so that was important.”

Rivett said that, after the surgery, she will be in recovery for three months, requiring appointments in London every two to three days for the first month, then three appointments a week for a period, two appointments a week, and finally one appointment a week for the last month of recovery. After that, for three to four months, she will need monthly check-ups, and then, after the first year is up, she will go for check-ups once or twice a year as needed.

“They will take blood work, make sure my levels are still good and just check everything,” she said, adding she will have to take anti-rejection medications to keep herself healthy. 

She will also have to make some lifestyle changes, including diet and withdrawing from contact sports, but it’s a price she’s willing to pay, since the living donor opportunity Haak is providing gives Rivett so much more time before she will need another kidney.

Rivett said that her community has been incredibly supportive through this difficult period, raising more than $20,000 through last year’s fundraiser. She also said that her employers, both past and present, have been incredibly supportive.

Rivett said her current employer has made it so both she and Haak can take any time off they need, while a former employer, the owner of the Benmiller Inn, has allowed Rivett to stay at a hotel he runs in London free of cost.

“That has been appreciated,” she said. “I’ve needed so many hotel stays, and my parents will be staying there when I’m in London, and I’ll be staying there while I’m recovering. It’s amazing how people I connected with years ago have come to help out. I can’t be more thankful.”

She said that any conversation about thanks would be dominated by Haak, saying that, even though they don’t know each other beyond being neighbours, Haak is saving her life.
As far as Haak’s future is concerned, she said there shouldn’t be much of a change.

“The doctor’s say once I’m healed, I’ll be fine,” she said, adding that while hospitals in London wouldn’t do the live liver transplant she originally intended to do, the University of Toronto hospital would after a period of healing from the kidney donation.
Haak said she was happy to give Rivett this chance because, in 15 to 20 years, technology may make some donor programs unnecessary with advancements like 3D-printed organs.

“Who knows? She will eventually need another kidney, but we don’t know how far medical science will advance in the next 15-20 years,” she said.

Literally giving of herself has been a long-time practice for Haak, as she’s given blood, signed up for marrow and stem cell donor programs and, as stated, was preparing to be enrolled in a live liver donation program.

She said that, if people are healthy and have the ability, they should consider donations like she is, because it’s giving people a second chance and changing their life.