After two transplants, N.L. golfer plans to celebrate life at World Transplant Games
Jim Patriquin of Steady Brook will participate in the sporting event this month in the U.K.
In wind, fog, sun or cloud, you can find Jim Patriquin making his rounds at the Humber Valley Resort Golf Club. The 70-year-old from Steady Brook is usually there six days a week, practicing his drive, pitch and putt.
Patriquin braves all kinds of weather because he wants to be at the top of his game when he represents Canada at the World Transplant Summer Games this month in Newcastle, England.
Participating in the event is a way to celebrate not only his own life, but the life of his donor, he says.
The World Transplant Games are like the Olympics, except they're for transplant recipients and organ donors or their families.
Patriquin is a two-time transplant recipient himself.
The first transplant was back in the mid-1970s after he was diagnosed with leukemia. At the time he was told he could only have months to live, but Patriquin was determined to fight the disease. In 1978, he was offered a relatively new kind of treatment — a bone marrow transplant.
Doctors told him there was only a 50 per cent chance it'd work but without it, there was "essentially no hope to survive." So with his brother as his living donor, he went to Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto for the procedure.
"It took 11 days, I believe, for it to start producing new blood cells for me," Patriquin said.
"So that was a big celebration day when those first cell showed up, because quite often they don't always work that way."
More hard news
The second transplant came much later.
During his cancer treatment, Patriquin had a number of blood transfusions. Somewhere along the way, he was given blood from a donor with hepatitis.
"In 1985, I was up for a recheck with doctors up in Toronto," he said.
"He told me then that I had hep C and I would have liver cancer in 30 years."
Unfortunately, the doctor was right. Patriquin was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2011 and was put on the transplant list.
These days, Patriquin is in much better health. His new liver is healthy and even his hepatitis C has been cured.
Making the most of life
Jon Hickman agrees with Patriquin that the games are a chance to celebrate life. Hickman is the Newfoundland and Labrador director for the Canadian Transplant Association and a transplant recipient himself.
This will be Hickman's second World Transplant Games and a chance to catch up friends he would never have met otherwise.
"I've got a good friend from Australia and another from the U.S.," he said.
"It's fun having friends that you're competing against who are pushing you but are also cheering on at the same time."
The World Transplant Games will run from August 17-24. More than 50 athletes will be there to represent Canada.