A simple wish – talk about it

Garden City man wants you to fill out little blue card

Henry Horner has one wish and it’s not to become the poster boy for organ donation, by succumbing to his failing kidneys before he can get a transplant.

“If I can get people to do one thing, it would be to sit down with their family and talk about it, talk about it seriously,” he said. “It’s not about me, it’s about all of us sitting in the hospital room.”

Horner, who goes by the nickname Hank, describes a typical week stuck on “the machine” – a dialysis machine in the Seven Oaks General Hospital’s dialysis unit, which cleans the blood of almost 100 patients daily.

He has his blood cleaned three times a week for four hours each stretch. “It can get to you, sitting there, or in my case lying there, for four hours, you’re bored, you’re tired.

“And I’ve been doing it for only three years...we have one beautiful young woman down there, probably in her 20s, and I asked her how long she’s been on dialysis, and she told me 16 years. Sixteen years! How can she stand doing that?”

Horner’s kidneys shut down after years of using a very common drug – ibuprofen – to treat mild headaches as a truck driver.

“I became addicted...it’s an over the counter drug, but everyone’s different, everyone reacts different.”

Now, at 65 years old, he’s been on dialysis and the transplant list for a new kidney for three years.

During that time, he’s nearly died twice.

And before he dies, he hopes to change people’s minds about organ donation.

“I think people are afraid,” said Horner. “I think they have this vision in their head of them being all cut up and in the casket and they won’t look like themselves...I worked for years at a funeral parlour, I can tell you that’s not what happens. You’re covered up in your fancy suit or your nice dress.”

Horner, a Garden City resident, said declining accident fatalities and better medical treatment means that there are fewer and fewer organs donated every year.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, thank the heavenly father that people aren’t getting hurt, but it does decrease your chances of getting a donation.”

According to Brian Smiley, spokesperson for Manitoba Public Insurance, Manitoba removed the organ donation declaration from driver’s licences due to space limitations with their new graduated drivers licence system. They then asked people to fill out a little blue card that asks about their organ donation preferences and asks people to keep the card with their licence.

However, Horner said getting people to fill out the blue cards and keep them on their person is a struggle.

“No one has ever given me a satisfactory answer as to why organ donation has come off our driver’s licences,” said Horner.

Sybil Stokdoff with Transplant Manitoba said it is a challenge to get people to sign the card.

“I think it’s because it means people have to think about their own mortality, and that’s not something most people want to think about.”

She said she also hears the excuse that health care providers will be more likely to let you die if you’re an organ donor.

“That’s completely false...health care providers in Manitoba will do everything possible to save you first before organ donation becomes an issue.”

She said, however, it’s important people talk about their wishes with their families so that loved ones don’t have to make a decision during a stressful, heartbreaking time.

“A lot of time the family doesn’t know the person’s wishes, so they say no, and that’s a real missed opportunity to save many lives.”

Stokdoff said Manitoba does kidney and lung transplants. At any given time, about 150 Manitobans are waiting for a kidney transplant, and 20 more are waiting for a lung transplant.

There are 4,000 Canadians waiting for some sort of organ donation that will either save their lives or enhance their lives greatly.