Tina gets her groove back, and Dunnville is happy

In late August we left you on tenterhooks about Tina DeBoersap, who was heading into St. Joseph’s Hospital for a high-risk kidney transplant.

It was scheduled for Aug. 30, Tina’s 65th birthday. But at the last minute she was told she was not well enough to undergo the operation. Her body was reacting poorly to the anti-rejection medication she’d been put on in preparation for the surgery.

But, after managing to stabilize her to their satisfaction, doctors rescheduled the surgery for later that week. Tina received her new kidney, and it did not go well.

“It was very dodgy. Just eight hours after the transplant, I bottomed out,” Tina tells me. “I stopped breathing. The ICU team came up and got me going again.”

She thinks it was probably a reaction to all the medication and anesthetics she needed to get her through the surgery.

Over the next three or four days she received transfusions as they tried to balance out the workings of her new kidney. “I never ever felt well or good during those days,” says Tina, adding that she went completely blind after the transplant; she already had virtually no sight in one eye but her good eye was not working either.

But since then she has made a remarkable comeback, and the doctors are pleased with her progress. Her sight is coming back, though still not a hundred per cent.

“Things have fallen into line,” Tina tells me. It’s reassuring to hear. “Basically all my kidney function and hormone levels are checking out well.”

Among the reason she was considered high risk is that she’s lived most of her life as a Type 1 diabetic; she was diagnosed at 17. And she was born with only one lung. So the prognosis was not good. And maybe because she scared everyone so much, everyone in Dunnville, where she now lives (she grew up in Hamilton), seems ecstatic to see her now doing so well.

People are treating her like a “celebrity,” says Tina, with a humble laugh. “I guess a kidney transplant is a big thing in our town. Everyone asks, ‘How are you doing?’ People are so sweet.”

And kidney donor Nicole Reid, who also lives in Dunnville and goes to the same church as Tina, is doing exceptionally well, says Tina.

“When she sees me she asks, ‘So how’s my baby (kidney) doing?’”

So if you’ve been wondering about Tina, and worrying, rest assured. She’s roaring back.

And we couldn’t’ be happier that she is.

The reason I found out about Tina’s transplant in the first place was that people, after reading an even earlier column, (Aug. 5, 2017) about David Angus’s kidney transplant, thought I might be interested.

David’s father Ken was the donor in that one. And this October they’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of that very special organic father-son bond. It happened on Halloween 1997.

I told you in the Aug. 5 column that David, to celebrate the milestone (he’s still doing great, by the way) is organizing a huge bash. Guitar Strings and Kidney Things: 20th Transplantiversary Concert. It’s not the “exact” anniversary but close — Sat., Oct. 28 at the Collective Arts Brewery in Hamilton, 207 Burlington St. East.

The time is drawing nigh and I hope everyone will put the event on their calendar. Money raised goes to the Kidney Foundation of Canada in the hope, says David, that others in Hamilton with kidney trouble can be as fortunate as he was.

The concert features well-known Canadian band Lowest of the Low, openers The In Between and comedian Adrian Cronk as emcee.

Tickets are $35. Visit kidney.on.ca

Thanks to readers who responded to the Sept. 27 column on discrepancies in Hamilton’s roadside population signs, some saying 520,000, other 535,000. I asked if anyone could find other discrepancies, and some, including Robert Bell, spotted a 505,000 on southbound Highway 6 near Puslinch.

Let me know if you find more.

Lastly, a note that the African Children’s Choir, made up of some of the continent’s most vulnerable young people, perform at their debut Hamilton gala on Sunday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m., 121 Hughson St.