The Norris family’s curse of the 27s
Kidney transplants have kept family members connected
Her chest was swollen and bandaged.
The white gauze taped to her upper right chest was flecked with blood, but Shannon Norris wore the bandage as though it was a badge of honour.
It marked the place where only a few hours earlier, on Feb. 9, physicians removed the catheter that had connected the 29-year-old Niagara Falls resident to the machines that kept her alive for more than two years.
The feeling of finally being freed of her reliance on the apparatus defied description.
“It’s the worst thing you can imagine, times a million — four days a week, four hours a day. So anything that gets you out of there is pretty incredible,” she says. “At times, it feels pretty hopeless when the only thing that’s keeping you alive is that machine.”
Shannon became “incredibly sick” in December 2015, and was admitted into St. Catharines hospital’s intensive care unit. When she was finally released from hospital two months later, a catheter had been implanted in her body.
For years to come, she would spend four hours a day, four days a week at Welland hospital — one of up to 24 patients at a time relying on dialysis machines to clean toxins from their blood and keep them alive.
Shannon had glomerulonephritis, a rare disease that can lead to severe and prolonged inflammation which can damage a patient’s kidneys. Although the disease is rarely hereditary, in Shannon’s case it definitely was.
“It’s genetic,” says her father, Stevensville resident Randy Norris.
“Doctors didn’t really know that until Shannon got sick,” he says.
“It’s the curse of the 27s,” Shannon says of her family’s experience. “As soon as you’re 27, your kidneys fail.”
Randy was diagnosed with kidney failure at the age of 27, followed by his younger brother Denny a few years later when he, too, turned 27.
But for each of them, heroes stepped in to save their lives.
Randy’s hero was his mother, Myrna.
“My mother stepped up and gave me mine,” he says of the kidney he had transplanted into him.
And probably because of the quality of the match, Randy is still alive and healthy 26 years later.
“When I had my transplant, doctors said the kidney would last anywhere from 10 to 15 years. I’m going on 26.”
Randy’s mother, of course, only had one spare kidney to give.
A suitable donor kidney was eventually found for Denny, giving him 20 years of life before that kidney eventually failed, too.
When I had my transplant, doctors said the kidney would last anywhere from 10 to 15 years. I’m going on 26.” Randy Norris
“He went back on dialysis, but he lost his fight,” Randy says. “He passed away right before Christmas.”
At the same time as Denny was in hospital dying, Randy received a phone call with some much needed good news. It was Shannon, telling him her transplant had been approved and surgery was scheduled for Jan. 10 in Hamilton.
Finding suitable organ donors is never easy, but Shannon’s search was particularly difficult.
“My blood type is the rarest for dialysis,” she says, referring to the O-negative blood flowing through her veins. “If I had gone on the waiting list, I would have been on it for six to eight years waiting because of my blood type.”
Although O-negative blood can be used by people with another blood type, people with O-negative blood can only receive the same.
Shannon found her hero when she least expected it.
While talking to her sister Brie Norris she mentioned the difficulties she had faced finding a donor, due to her blood type. Brie’s boyfriend Jordan House was listening to that conversation, and knew he could help.
“He said that was his blood type, and he was going to give me his kidney,” Shannon says. “He was almost an exact match. They said he wouldn’t have been a better match if we were brother and sister. The match was perfect.”
The 25-year-old Thorold man needed no encouragement to do everything that needed to be done to prepare for the transplant surgery. He says physicians told him a body can live off of one kidney for its entire life without even knowing it had two.
“I just wanted to do it,” House says. “You can’ t watch someone go through that and be able to move on with your own life without doing what you can do to help.”
It took about a year of tests, preparation and delays waiting for Shannon’s health to improve before the transplant could be done.
During that time, Shannon faced some “extremely close calls.”
The closest happened on Father’s Day last year, when Shannon was rushed to Greater Niagara General Hospital by ambulance. She had stopped breathing, and went into cardiac arrest while in the back of an ambulance.
Her long wait finally came to an end at about 9 a.m. on Jan. 11, at St. Joseph’s hospital in Hamilton. Shannon is certain she wouldn’t survived the six- to eight-year wait for another donor kidney if it hadn’t been for House.
“I’m alive because of him,” she says.
Although House will remain under the watchful eye of medical staff to ensure he has no complications, donating his kidney shouldn’t have a negative impact on his health. But with only one kidney left, he does have to avoid contact sports or activities that could result in abdominal injuries — just in case.
“My lifestyle shouldn’t change,” he says.
Randy says his father, Larry Norris, has since become a victim of the family curse, too, but his case is an exception to the rule. He was 74 when his kidneys gave out — much older than his sons and granddaughter. The Hamilton resident is currently receiving dialysis treatment sin Hamilton, and Randy says he seems to be coping well.
Randy says he harbours “tremendous guilt” because the disease was passed on through his genes. But through his own experience with the disease, Randy was better able to help his daughter cope with her treatment.
“I had a great support team,” Shannon says, adding her mother Darlene Norris was by her side throughout the ordeal.
Shannon’s fiance Grant Copeland pitched in, too, watching their three children while she was undergoing treatments. “The support was incredible.” If the family’s fears are realized and the curse continues, Shannon says she will be able to draw from her own experience, and offer the same support her father provided for her. With a new lease on life, she hopes to be able to dedicate more time to her family — including caring for her autistic son.
She also plans to continue her education, hoping to eventually become an emergency dispatcher — sending paramedics to help others who may find themselves in the same lifethreatening situation she found herself in last June.
Her heart remains with the many friends she made among other patients as well as medical staff while receiving dialysis treatments in Welland.
“It broke my heart waiting there. There were 50 to 60 people just where I dialyzed who aren’t going to leave those chairs. I saw them more than I saw my family, more than I saw my kids. They were so kind to me.”
She hopes her story inspires others who continue to spend their days connected to dialysis machines.
Randy says for some of the dialysis patients, his daughter’s transplant might be perceived as “a light at the end of the tunnel.” “It gives them hope,” he says. Shannon also hopes her story will inspire people to become organ donors.
“A lot of organs go in the ground, and there are a lot of sad stories in the hospital that would appreciate them more than that.”