Every breath you take

Garry McNamee with the medals he took home from Calgary.

County resident medals twice at Canada Transplant Games

Garry McNamee was just a month or so from succumbing to pulmonary fibrosis— a disease that robs its victims of breath. In time the scarring and stiffening of breathing passages causes lungs to fail.

The Wellington on the Lake resident had been waiting for a lung transplant for nearly ten years. The wait was taking its toll. He was 64 and didn’t expect he would see spring.

Then the news came. He was to get to Toronto General Hospital immediately. On Jan. 24, 2010 Garry underwent 12 hours of surgery to replace both his lungs. The donor lungs were placed in a sterile dome, pumped continuously with a solution of nutrients and treated with anti-inflammatory medications and antibiotics, making it possible for the injured cells to begin repairing themselves.

It is the same procedure performed on Helene Campbell, the young Ottawa woman whose story was told around the world when pop star Justin Bieber and talk show host Ellen Degeneres publicized her appeal for organ donors.

Two years later Garry McNamee is a new man. He continues to battle the side effects of the drugs used to prevent his body from rejecting the new lungs but otherwise he is feeling better than he has for more than a decade. So much better he volunteered to participate and compete in the 2012 Canadian Transplant Games, held last week in Calgary Alberta.

Not only did he compete, McNamee came home with a couple of medals around his neck: a gold in golf and a silver in bowling.

Garry belongs to a local support group called the Transplant Advocates Association— fellow transplant recipients and those waiting for transplants. Together they share the latest information, treatment and care techniques as well as personal experiences and journeys that few others can really understand.

The local group reaches up from the Quinte region to Ottawa. The group chose five of its members to represent them in Calgary. McNamee put his hand up—not quite sure what he was getting himself into.

“I really didn’t know what I was capable of,” recalled McNamee. “But we did really well. Our group of five took brought home 16 medals. It was a great accomplishment.”

McNamee did have some anxious moments however. During a preliminary event he met a former Olympic athlete who was preparing for a track event.

“He was huge,” said McNamee. “I figured I was in big trouble if this was the type of athlete I was competing against. He went like a bullet.”

But McNamee prevailed in his events, winning a pair of medals, despite a strong field—impressing his teammates and himself.

He says the city of Calgary put out the welcome mat for the participants.

“They gave us the white hat treatment,” said McNamee. “It was a lifetime experience.”

It has put the idea of perhaps a run at the World Transplant Games to be held in Durbin, South Africa next year. If he doesn’t make it to South Africa, he hopes to participate in the 2014 Canada Transplant Games expected to be held in the Bay of Fundy region of New Brunswick.

The Transplant Games are meant to demonstrate those awaiting a transplant that a full life awaits them after surgery. The event also functions as a way to tell the rest of the world that organ transplants work—that signing your donor care may save a life.

McNamee says it isn’t enough simply to sign your donor card.

“Tell family members of your intentions and wishes. Tell your doctor.”

He says it has never been easier to become registered. Simply go to beadonor.ca and sign up.