Organ donation’s best salesman ever
An Antioch family’s son was saved because of one person’s generosity and now, he’s helping to inspire others to give
It’s a chilly morning in Pittsburg. The long line of people outside the DMV snakes around the corner of the building. Eyes are vacant. Expressions are grim.
Then there is the Ouimet family of Antioch, dressed up and exulting as if it’s a holiday. Which to them it is. They have been invited to address the employees regarding a new DMV campaign in which banners picturing people who have received donated organs will be hung in DMV offices all over California. Four organ recipients will be featured, one of them 6-year-old Matthew Ouimet.
“We were at the state capital in April, and I had somebody from Southern California come
up and say, ‘I just have to meet this guy from the banner,'” said Matthew's mother, Kristi Ouimet. “I'm like, ‘Banner? What are you talking about?' I had no idea. He showed me a picture, and it blew my mind. I reached out to the people at Donor Network West, and they said they are getting the banners and they're starting to go up here in Northern California.”
I first met Matthew in 2012 when he was not yet 2. He already had lived a lot of life. At four months old he experienced renal failure. So dire was his predicament, his parents, Kelly and Kristi, had him baptized at the emergency room. After he was stabilized, he was placed on six-days-a-week dialysis at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in San Francisco — a 94-mile round trip from the Ouimets' home.
A little insipiration
Matthew had the genetic condition primary hyperoxaluria Type 1, which leaves the liver unable to cleanse the blood of harmful oxalates. He would need a liver and kidney transplant to have any semblance of a normal life. The family waited 15 months (and three false alarms) for suitable organs. They finally arrived in June 2013 and were transplanted into Matthew's tiny torso during a 13-hour surgery. He spent 73 days in the hospital before coming home four years ago next month. Two months after that, the Ouimets met the mother of the deceased donor whose organs were a match for Matthew.
The banners are an extension of the Ouimets' strident advocacy for organ donation and Matthew's ability to charm and inspire others with his resiliency, his trademark thumbs-up pose and the twinkle in his eyes. Just as example:
Pittsburg resident Kim Vizcuso suffered a broken leg and ankle in October 2013, as Matthew was still recovering from the transplant. Vizcuso, 50, had multiple surgeries and was confined to a bed or wheelchair for five months.
“I gave up on God,” she said. “Everything came to a head for me.”
She didn't think much of Facebook, but when a friend set up an account for her, promising it would relieve her boredom, Vizcuso gave it a try. “The first story I read was Matthew's,” she said. “My eyes filled with tears. I said, ‘You're feeling sorry for yourself. Look at this baby.' Matthew gave me a reason to change how I looked at things.'”
Vizcuso became more than Facebook friends with Kristi Ouimet, and she was there to congratulate Matthew at the DMV.
It is hoped that Matthew's banner will similarly inspire drivers to declare their willingness to be an organ donor by having a pink dot placed on their license. It really is a matter of life and death. According to organdonor. gov, 117,000 men, women and children are on the national transplant list. Twenty-two people die each day waiting for a transplant.
Even before this banner campaign, the Ouimets believed taking the discussion to the DMV made sense.
“We kept thinking on our drives to San Francisco and back, how can we get our message across?” Kristi Ouimet said.
Poster boy
A couple of weeks before Matthew's transplant, local photographer Mandi Raymond took a show-stopping photo of Matthew sitting in a field, backlit by the setting sun, his shirt off to expose his tubes and catheters, with a small chalkboard bearing the message: “Become an organ donor.” Kristi put the image on her Facebook page. It was viewed 45,000 times in two weeks.
“We said, ‘What would be great is if this picture could be in the DMV,'” Kristi said. Now it is, one of two Matthew-themed banners — one of which is on display in the Concord DMV. Their inspirational value could be considerable. Ninety-five percent of U.S. adults support organ donation, but only 34 percent sign up.
Kristi Ouimet said she regards the banner as a “full-circle” moment. Matthew, who is homeschooled, is about to enter first grade. He takes seven medications a day. His oxalate level remains elevated, and it is possible he will someday need another transplant. But you wouldn't know it to look at him, a happy boy who during a recent photo shoot asked his mom, “When this is over, can I go play?”
“He's witty,” Kristi said. “He's sarcastic. But now instead of being different, he's seeing a lot more how he's similar (to other kids). He gets to be a little boy now.”