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When she was three weeks old, the left side of Addison MacArthur's heart stopped functioning and she was placed at the top of the British Columbia transplant waiting list.
Well, the person from Vancouver has just celebrated his 14th birthday. National Donation Life Month, It aims to raise awareness about organ, eye and tissue donations.
As Addison tells the story, doctors tell their parents “probably the sickest baby, if not everything, in Canada.” ”
Her parents, Elaine Yong and Aaron MacArthur, will find out later that she had Incompatible cardiomyopathy of the left ventriclecan cause heart problems such as arrhythmia and heart failure.
Addison's mother is shocked to learn that her firstborn, her newborn, was in the midst of life and death circumstances.
“As a new mom, I think you have all these preconceived notions about what's going to happen (and how it will turn out to watch your child grow up,” said Yong, who was 36 at the time. “It's so … wow, you can't control everything. You can't control the way this goes.”
A few days later she received the call she had hoped for. On Mother's Day that year, the family cardiac surgeon said he had found Addison's heart. Yong was very grateful, but she couldn't do what she wanted to do. She couldn't thank the donor directly. The Canadian transplant system, like its US counterparts, keeps organ donor and transplant recipient ID information private.
See: One girl's heart saved another girl's life. Watch the two families finally meet | courtesy of Global News
Thousands of people on the waiting list
Addison is one of the lucky ones, historically supplying organ needs, allowing patients to suffer for years on waiting lists. Approximately 50,000 ports have been made In the US in 2024. In Canada, Almost 3,500 transplants It was held in 2023 and those numbers have climbed in both countries. the current, It's only over 100,000 With the people of the United States Almost 3,500 people in Canada He is currently on the port waiting list. Many people can die without a step.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a single donor can save up to eight lives. However, even if the transplant is successful, there is no guarantee that the donor's family and the transplant recipient will meet, not to mention the relationship between the donor's family and the transplant recipient. National statistics on the number of organ donor families are connected to transplant recipients, making them difficult to fix in both the US and Canada, and estimates are low. Hilary Kleine, vice president of communications and registry at Donate Life America, a national organ donation advocacy group, said her organization is collecting this data.
In the US, local organ procurement organizations that help organ recovery hold that kind of data, such as Donor Network West in California and Liveonny in New York. In Canada, some organ donation organizations, such as the BC transplant in Vancouver, where Yong works, have direct communication programs that “enable recipients and donor families to travel beyond anonymous communication.”
Several organ donation experts, including Dr. Nick Murphy, an organ donation ethics researcher at Western University in London, Ontario, say some donors and transplant recipients are also independently connected online.
“That was something I always knew. If I met the donors, I would want to do,” Elaine Yong said.
She wasn't private about the journey – she BlogGING about Addison's porting to keep friends and family up to date. About a year later, she sent a letter of thanks to the donor family through the transplant center.
To her great surprise, the other mother replied.
“It was Addison's one year Heart Anniversary Party Day,” recalls Yong. “I remember seeing the blog, and as I saw someone commenting, 'I'm Addison's donor's mom.”
“She thought I was a fake,” Felicia Hill, 21, who lived in Reno, Nevada, said when she received Yong's letter. Hill looked at her online and found her blog.
A year ago, her baby girl, Audrey Jade Hope Salger, passed away just six days after she was born to an unknown cause.
Audrey has come when Hill agreed to donate Audrey's organs The youngest organ donor in Nevada that year. Her kidneys went to an adult woman, her heart went to Addison.
Yong saw online that Hill started working in advocacy and dates matched. “I saw her having a letter I sent, and I was 100% aware that this was our donor's mom.”
Yong also emailed Hill's story. “There were several people involved in the incident that actually provided enough hints to solidify it.” Over time, she began communicating, then became friends on Facebook, and in 2013, the two women agreed to meet with their families in Santa Clara, California for a donation lifewalk.
Yong brought a stethoscope so Hill was able to listen to Audrey's heart on Addison's chest, and Hill brought Addison a T-shirt commemorating Audrey's memory.
“I've gone there and have something really valuable that belongs to someone else. And that makes her really sad. She's really emotional and I'm thinking of having a daughter and a daughter here who's not here,” Yong said. “But that wasn't the case at all.”
“When I first met her… I just wanted to hold Elaine,” Hill said. “I quickly felt connected to what another mother had raised her child. That gave me so much happiness.”
Hill, now 33, said their first meeting went well as she reconciled with Audrey's death, and she is now sharing her story to encourage others to consider donating organs at the advocacy event.
Yong is currently 50 years old. She said she was moved by the meeting, urging her to become an even stronger advocate for organ donation. In fact, she quit her job in journalism and became the communications manager for BC Transplant, a local organ donor organization.
The mothers of two communicate several times a year, and sometimes talk at meetings about their experiences with Audrey and Addison.
They consider each other to be family. This now includes two children from Hill and Addison's sister. Addison calls Hill “Aunt Felicia” and sends out the medal he won in track and swimming competitions. In 2018, Hill went to Vancouver to cheer on Addison at an event designed for transplant athletes. Canadian port games.
At the end of April, both families celebrate Audrey's birthday. She would have been 14 on April 30th. And Hill plans to be in the stands when Addison competes. World transplant game in Dresden, Germanythis summer.
“It's really amazing to see her (Addison) live her life and she's her own person,” Hill said.
“I want to say that organ donation is like the ultimate act of love,” Yong said. “This is like this most amazing gift that you don't know where it came from when you gave it. You have no control over who it goes to.
If you're interested in becoming an organ donor, you can register in your local auto department, or in the DMV, or online. organdonor.gov.
If you are the organ donor you are trying to connect with your transplant recipient, or vice versa, your transplant center may be able to help.
Eryn Mathewson is a podcast producer for the CNN audio team, previously powered by ESPN and WNYC. Her colleague Christa Beau contributed to this story.
