Mitchell family continues to promote organ/tissue donation
Add your name to registry at www.beadonor.ca
By
Mark Schadenberg
In
the children’s cartoon movies Planes, an ordinary crop-dusting airplane becomes
a champion long-distance racing plane and in the sequel a heroic forest fire
fighting flyer.
In the real world of Ryley Mitchell of Woodstock, she is everyone’s hero as a champion child after a heart transplant when only 7 months old.
Today
(Jan. 29) marks exactly nine years since Ryley received a new heart. Today, she
is more than a fighter, she is also a runner and a regular child (if you didn’t
know her entire story).In the real world of Ryley Mitchell of Woodstock, she is everyone’s hero as a champion child after a heart transplant when only 7 months old.
The connection to the movie Planes, is that a group of families, including the Mitchells and Schadenbergs, enjoyed the Planes sequel at a theatre a few months ago. I didn’t know the Mitchells well then, but now just a few months later, the family is one I greatly admire.
Ryley’s
parents – Joanna and Jeff, are obviously very proud of their 9-year-old treasure
as Ryley has now competed in athletics at the Canadian Transplant Association
Games, winning five gold medals (sprinting, ball throw, swimming, bowling), but
on a charitable note donated her presents from both her 8th and 9th
birthdays to Toronto’s Hospital For Sick Children. Ryley and
proud Mom are both spokespersons for organ and tissue
donation.
For her public service, Ryley was
recognized last September with a province-wide award -- the
Thomas Quinet Youth Award, which is named after a young man who had cystic
fibrosis and underwent a double lung transplant, but sadly would later die in
September of 2011. Quinet’s parents established the award in his
memory.
The
link to the entire award story published in The Woodstock Sentinel-Review is
below, along with other Ryley stories and biographies.
Joanna
Mitchell is today a public speaker for the donor registry or www.beadonor.ca.
Joanna has been the guest speaker at many gatherings and co-organizes a local event
to bring more awareness to organ/tissue donation, saying there are about 1,500 people
currently in Ontario waiting for an organ and that sadly the unfortunate death
of one person could assist up to eight others – heart, liver, lungs, kidney,
eyes, etc.
Dilated cardiomyopathy is the
diagnosis her parents received when Ryley was only two months old. In a 2005
blog entry (full story below) for the transplant association, Joanna wrote about
the initial diagnosis:
()()()()()()()()()()
. . . When we arrived in
London, our tiny little baby was swarmed by doctors and nurses trying to examine
her and get blood. Through all the commotion, I remember seeing one doctor
standing in the background holding up the chest x-ray and saying “enlarged
heart”. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew it sounded bad. A
cardiologist ordered an echocardiogram on Ryley and, within an hour of arriving,
we had the diagnosis of Dilated Cardiomyopathy. When the heart becomes enlarged,
it cannot effectively pump blood to the rest of your body and your other organs
start to fill with fluid and shut down. With the severity of Ryley’s
enlargement, it seemed a miracle she was still alive. I remember asking the
doctor if this meant she was going to die. He said, “No, but she would likely be
a candidate for a heart transplant”. . .
. . . when she was 7 months old, we
could see she was getting worse and we were given the choice of palliative care
(making her comfortable until she passed) or listing her for transplant. The
choice was clear. Miraculously, only 10 days after she was listed, Ryley
received her gift of life. Eleven days after that, she was discharged from the
hospital and hasn’t looked back since. . .
()()()()()()()()()()
Ryley Mitchell also has a terrific
younger brother Landon.
I have never asked Ryley’s parents,
but according to a 2012 London Free Press story, the woman who would give a
heart to Ryley was an anonymous American donor.
Joanna Mitchell has now met many
families that have sadly lost a love one, but donated organs / tissues to
improve someone else’s life:
"I
know someone had to lose their child so mine could live and that's so
difficult," she said, in the Free Press article.
Be
sure to watch the YouTube clip below as Joanna Mitchell was a recent guest on
the Oxford County Rogers TV show Women Of Courage.
If you plan to register, you will need your Ontario Health Card, and a moment to give a hearty 'thumbs up' to Ryley.
If you plan to register, you will need your Ontario Health Card, and a moment to give a hearty 'thumbs up' to Ryley.
LINKS:
www.beadonor.ca
www.beadonor.ca
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