Tested by life
How far is Ingrid prepared to go to keep her family together?
Ingrid’s (Stephanie Sandows) bratty and jealous half-brother Shannon (Matthew Potter) framed her beloved father Wesley (Zane Meas) for dealing drugs in May last year but their family differences were set aside when Shannon barely survived a car accident recently. “They left things quite bitter between them but they have been able to make peace while he is lying in his hospital bed,” reveals Stephanie. “Ingrid is a good person, she really is. When she sees Shannon like that, she almost forgets what was in their past and she’s more concerned about his life and the fact that he looks so ill hooked up to machines.” But just how far family and forgiveness stretch, well, that is about to be tested. Ingrid finds out that Shannon desperately needs a kidney transplant and the clock is ticking…
A PIECE OF YOU
“My knowledge [of the condition and surgical procedure] isn’t all that much. I have learnt that it is not as easy as going, ‘Yeah, you can have one of my kidneys. You can have this part of me’. There is a part of you where you wonder how safe the procedure is and what if something should happen to you while you’re on the operating table? You feel conflicted because you feel selfish at the back of your mind. It isn’t black and white,” explains Stephanie of her character’s dilemma. Ingrid dreads what’s coming when the options to help Shannon start falling through and their biological mother Arabella (Sandi Schultz) becomes desperate to save him.
INGRID’S DILEMMA
Just seeing Shannon in hospital brings back terrible memories of her adoptive mother’s death for Ingrid. “She has this deeply rooted fear of even stepping into a hospital. In the back of her mind, she knows that she should volunteer to get tested [to be a donor], but she is so scared to get tested for fear that if it does come back positive, then she will sit with the decision of donating an organ – and then what type of person does it make her if she refuses? As the family members are all getting tested, she is kind of holding onto hope that it will be someone else other than her. Throughout this journey, she is conflicted by what she knows is right and what is needed for a family member,” says Stephanie. It’s one of those pinch points in life that tests who a person really is and Ingrid might not like the answer she gets.