Double transplant patient ‘looking forward to the future’
Kitchener man gets new kidney: ‘My body hasn’t been my own for years,’ he says
KITCHENER — Friday the 13th is lucky for Charles Cook.
That’s the day the Kitchener man got a new kidney.
Combined with the new heart he got last year, Cook is finally free from the machines he needed to keep his body going.
“I’m looking forward to the future, and having a future,” said Cook, 48.
“I’ve actually started to look past tomorrow or this week.”
Before his two life-saving transplants, Cook didn’t make plans because he didn’t know what the next day would bring.
Cook struggled for years with a hereditary condition that caused severe heart failure, leading to a debilitating stroke in 2005.
Then he got a left ventricular assist device — a mechanical pump that helped pump blood through his body and made him feel much better. But
that meant toting around the batteries that powered the device implanted in his chest everywhere he went.
A heart transplant in April 2016 did away with the need for that device. But Cook continued to rely on a dialysis machine to do the work for his failing kidneys.
He trained to do dialysis at home and while that offered more flexibility than having to go to Grand River Hospital for the treatment, he still needed to do it five days a week.
To keep himself busy during dialysis, Cook chronicled his health journey on his blog keepbangin.com, which he turned into a book with the aim of helping other transplant patients through the ups and downs.
He’s doing well after the kidney transplant on Oct. 13. A nurse comes every other day to change the dressing on the incision on his belly, and regular tests are needed to ensure the transplanted organ is doing well.
“Nothing I haven’t been through before,” Cook said.
Only this time he hasn’t had the setbacks like those he had with his new heart. “If there’s such a thing as a pleasant transplant experience, that’s what I’m going through now.”
Cook said the reality of no longer relying on machines hasn’t really sunk in yet. And after focusing on his health for the last dozen years, simply being is a new experience for him.
“My body hasn’t been my own for years,” Cook said.
He looks forward to being more active and exercising “to get the most out of this new life I’ve been given.”
His partner, Monica Pflug, is excited for the fresh start, too.
“It’s like freedom,” she said.
And things will only get better once the regular checkups in Toronto at the transplant hospital slow down and the couple settle into a normal routine.
Even something as simple as going out together to do errands is new territory.
“We can move on now,” she said.
Earlier this week, Cook said a bittersweet goodbye to the dialysis machine that had been a big presence in the couple’s apartment.
“It was tough. That machine kept me alive. I named her Dolly,” he said.
But Cook said that also made this new phase in his life feel more like reality. Finally, he can look to the future.
“Now there’s no waiting. I’m really, really happy.”