HOW DOCTOR’S NEIGHBOUR HELPED SAVE A MAN’S LIFE
Cyril Muise’s kidney disease was caught in time, and now he gives back as a volunteer
For the past 33 years, Cyril Muise and his wife, Lori, have enjoyed a happy marriage. “She’s babysitting our granddaughter,” he says with a smile, talking about two-year-old Hannah, his first grandchild. Everywhere the 59-year-old goes, a small part of Lori is always with him.
“She was my donor,” says Muise, who underwent a kidney transplant 19 years ago. “I didn’t ask her for it, but she stepped up when I needed her.”
While such an act of selfless love is impressive in itself, the story of how Muise was diagnosed with kidney failure in 1998 is also incredible.
The then-40-year-old father of two had been feeling unwell for years when, in early 1998, Lori sent her husband to get their four-year-old son, who had an earache, treated by their family physician, Dr. Barbara Howarth.
“She called the doctor ahead of time, hoping she’d look at me, too, so we could get a second opinion,” says Muise, whose own physician didn’t detect his health issues.
Howarth got Muise to take some lab tests while she treated his son. Not liking what she saw, that evening she visited her nextdoor neighbour for his opinion.
The neighbour was Dr. Nairne Scott-Douglas, a clinical nephrologist, otherwise known as a kidney specialist.
“She literally handed the file over the fence to me,” says ScottDouglas, who on Tuesday joins Muise to share their story.
The next day, the patient was in Scott-Douglas’s office, diagnosed on the spot with kidney failure.
Muise had had high blood pressure for a decade, with his kidneys suffering permanent damage.
“Between my wife, Barb and Dr. Nairne,” he says, referring to his friend Scott-Douglas by first name, “my life was saved.”
While first undergoing dialysis and then a transplant, Muise turned to the Kidney Foundation for practical and moral assistance. “They helped me to take control of my situation and also helped my family members immensely.”
That’s why for the past 18 years, Muise has been a passionate volunteer for the Kidney Foundation of Canada, Southern Alberta, serving in such areas as peer support and the national research council.
On Tuesday, he and Scott-Douglas met with me to mark Kidney Month, celebrated worldwide to raise awareness about kidney disease.
“Cyril could have easily gone, ‘Well, that was a horrible chapter in my life, I’m going to move on with my life now,’ ” says Scott-Douglas. “Instead, he decided to give back.”
Unfortunately, says the doctor, cases like Muise’s are all too common.
According to the latest statistics, one in 10 Canadians has kidney disease. Each day, 15 Canadians learn their kidneys have failed and more than 3,400 are awaiting a transplant.
“If you feel sick from kidney disease, you’re just about at the point you need dialysis,” says Scott-Douglas.
Fortunately, though, humans have more kidney than needed, making transplantation a viable choice for those looking to donate.
What’s also needed, though, is a focus on screening for a disease that Scott-Douglas says is a “silent, grumbling thing” that goes on for years before being detected.
“As with any disease, the longer it goes on, the harder is it to intervene,” he says. Getting blood and urine work done regularly is vital. “I see it all the time, someone coming in with only 30 per cent kidney function but they still don’t feel unwell.”
Through his work with Alberta Health Services’ Kidney Health Strategic Clinical Network and the Southern Alberta Renal program, Scott-Douglas is involved in initiatives such as ckdpathway. ca, a resource for family doctors that will expand later this year to allow patients to log on and take command of their treatment.
For his part, Cyril Muise plans to keep up his own work helping others cope with a disease he beat with the help of a loving wife and the care of medical professionals.
“I’ve been given a second chance,” he says with a broad smile. “I can’t waste it.”