A gift for Dad

A gift for Dad

Posted By Eric Bunnell, Times-Journal Reporter

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Thanksgiving was quiet this year for Bill Queen and his daughter, Wendy Queen.

Both are recovering from surgery.

But the 68-year-old Tillsonburg man and the 44-year-old St. Thomas woman are planning a thank-you with their two families once health permits.

They will be celebrating Wendy's gift of a kidney to her father in living-donor transplant surgery Oct. 1 at University Hospital, London.

"I am so proud of what she did," Bill beamed Friday in the kitchen of the neat northside St. Thomas home that Wendy has made with her husband, Norris Gillen.

"I have never been prouder of my daughter."

But for her part, Wendy is matter-of-fact about the decision she made a few years ago after Bill's kidney disease made him a candidate for transplantation.

Both she and her sister, Sandy Banks, 41, of Cambridge, Ont., agreed they would donate an organ of their own if they could.

DAD 'WAS SPEECHLESS'

"Of course, you would do it," Wendy says.

"Why wouldn't you?"

A retired Toronto-area motion picture projectionist and a former Canadian air force radio technician, Bill had been undergoing treatment for kidney disease since 2004.

It was after Bill and his wife, Marilyn, a St. Thomas native and retired construction company office manager, moved the following year to Tillsonburg, that Wendy, a laid-off Formet Industries worker who now is planning co-ordinator for Bright Cheese House, Woodstock, Ont., raised the possibility of a living-donor transplant.

"I was speechless," Bill says.

"That doesn't happen very often," Wendy laughs.

"That's one I owe you," Bill shoots back before he continues.

"I had no idea -- no idea. The proverbial feather could have floored me."

Bill, Wendy and Sandy began a lengthy series of tests to determine if a living donation was possible.

And a transplant became not only desirable but a medical necessity in July, 2007, after Bill fell ill to a bout of salmonella poisoning -- he suspects restaurant food -- and his kidneys all but shut down.

Since then, he has been receiving dialysis for three to four hours three times a week, first in London and then, when a place became available, at Tillsonburg hospital.

For an active man who enjoys woodworking and bowls with a 156 average in a seniors tenpin league, dialysis was difficult.

"When you're finished, you can't do a whole lot," Bill says.

"My arms just got very heavy."

He did not hesitate to accept Wendy's offer which her husband, Norris, a materials handler at Trojan Technologies water treatment manufacturer, London, supported.

"It's a great thing to do, if you can help someone," says Bill who, like Wendy, had signed the organ donor consent on his driver's licence.

Both Bill and Wendy say they were confident of the outcome. They praise the living-donor transplant team at University Hospital for their support.

But Marilyn admits she feared for both her husband and her daughter.

"I was a wreck!"

With daughter Sandy at her side, however, Marilyn was there to greet the two as they returned from surgery.

Both father and daughter are recovering well and making plans for the future. Wendy wants to run in the Boston Marathon once she is able to return to training in a few weeks. She took up distance running two years ago to combat cholesterol.

And Bill, who will receive anti-rejection therapy for the rest of his life, is thinking about that delayed celebration.

"We're working on it -- it's a plan in progress!"

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