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Four healthy decades after donating kidney to brother, Fiddler hopes to inspire, educate

This summer marks a special anniversary for James Fiddler and his older brother Harvey - both celebrated a full four decades since James successfully donated a kidney to his brother. Both men remain healthy 40 years later and have even inspired others to donate.
N35 Kidney Transplant
James Fiddler, Harvey Fiddler, Celia Deschambault and Bill Thomas pose at a family gathering early this year celebrating 40 years since James successfully donated a kidney to Harvey. The brothers’ donation later inspired Deschambault to donate one of her own kidneys to Thomas, her uncle.

This summer marks a special anniversary for James Fiddler and his older brother Harvey.

The Fiddlers celebrated a full four decades since James successfully donated a kidney to his brother. Both men remain healthy 40 years later and have even inspired others to donate.

Born and raised in northern Saskatchewan, James said Harvey grew up with a kidney problem that wasn’t diagnosed until his teens. When Harvey reached his early 20s, his kidneys were already starting to fail.

“At that time, there were no doctors to diagnose anything like that. He suffered through that until he became a teenager - that’s when they really found out what was going on,” said Fiddler.

“By that time, his kidney function was very low. When he was in his early 20s, he started deteriorating. When he was 23, his kidneys were just not working.”

Harvey was hospitalized in Saskatoon, undergoing medical treatment, but it soon became clear that he would need a replacement kidney.

“When I was told to go and see him, I didn’t go and see him right away because of work - I always had work - but I was asked to go and see him and I could never turn back after the first time I saw him, laying in the hospital,” Fiddler said.

“He was so skinny, he could hardly talk - he reached out for my hand and I gave him my hand. His was so fragile. The doctor who was there told me he needed a donor.”

As a procedure, kidney transplants were first done among a living donor and recipient in the mid-1950s. Today, about 1,500 people in Canada every year receive a kidney transplant. The long-term prognosis is good, but recipients must take anti-rejection drugs to keep their new organ viable within their body for the rest of their lives.

Kidneys, like other organs, can only be successfully transplanted if the donor and recipient match based on pre-transplant screening. Whether or not two people match is not a sure thing - family members aren’t always guaranteed to match, while occasionally, complete strangers can.

In the 1980s, when Harvey needed a new kidney, the procedure was becoming more commonplace but was not as well-known - questions about the surgery itself and what would come after were common, Fiddler said.

“At that time, donors were not known - being a donor was brand new to us. We didn’t know what it was,” he said.

Both James and Harvey underwent testing to see how well one of James’ kidneys would work within Harvey’s body.

“Within two weeks, I was called back to the hospital and they started doing the tests - in a month, they brought me in,” James recalled.

The news was good. Not only were the brothers a match, they were almost perfectly matched.

“The doctor told me it was very rare that two brothers could be that close of a match - only identical twins have that,” Fiddler recalled. A time and date was set.

“I asked him, ‘When can we have this done?’ They set a date - July 14, 1982, eight o’clock in the morning,” he recalled.

On that July day, the brothers were taken to Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon and both went under the surgeon’s knife.

“When the operation was done that day, I remember going into the operating room on a gurney and nurses were talking to me,” James recalled.

“One of them brought out the needle and said,’ ‘okay James, count backwards from 10.’ I remember saying 10 and that was it. I went under.”

When he woke up, the procedure was a success. One of James’ healthy kidneys had been transplanted and while both brothers would need to recover, each wanted to see each other.

“I wanted to see my brother right away and they said I couldn’t until a few days later. I asked ‘Why not?’ They said ‘We need to give him time because he’s weaker right now than you,’” James recalled.

“When I saw my brother, I just cried like a baby. I saw him looking at me and he was still very fragile. I was able to lay beside him - both gurneys were laid, side-by-side. I was in a different room because his treatment was different than mine - he had to be alone in one room. When I saw him there, I cried happy tears.”

In post-surgery recovery, Fiddler said he could recall the kindness of nurses and health staff, recalling one nurse in particular.

“Back in the day, when I was in the hospital, there was hardly anybody you talked to. There was one nurse there, her name was Rose - I never forgot her name. She was so good to us,” he recalled.

“There were wonderful nurses, very compassionate people.”

While recovery meant downtime for both Fiddlers, James said he knew his brother would be safe after the procedure. James was discharged from hospital healthy and able to help look after Harvey.

“I always knew that day, when it happened, I knew he was going to recover. When he did recover that summer, he was sent home and he kept on with therapy and stuff like that. When they sent me home, that was it - ‘Just be careful with yourself’,” James said.

When Harvey finally left the hospital, he went to the brothers’ family home to recover. While there were scares with his health, both brothers recovered and both Harvey and James have remained healthy ever since.

“Our family, we did a special thing. I went and lived at my parents' place with my brother, because they had to monitor and look after us,” James said.

By the time the fall came around, Fiddler was already out hunting and bringing home game birds for the family. Harvey took months to fully recover, but did and is still healthy today.

“My recovery went pretty quick. We had the operation in July and I was already hunting ducks and geese in September. My brother’s recovery was longer, right through the winter, into spring,” Fiddler said.

“Sometimes, he’d get fevers. He’d be sent out and we’d be thinking and wondering if this was it - but he would always come back. He is very special to us.”

The brothers’ example resonated with their family, so much so that other family members have also donated kidneys years later. Five years ago, Fiddler’s niece, Celia Deschambault, also donated one of her own kidneys - her uncle, Bill Thomas, was the recipient.

“My niece also donated a kidney to her uncle five years ago. That inspired me to try and have our story heard. I want people to understand that kidney donations do work. They really work,” Fiddler said.

“The way that it was set up by family members, my parents and the community, they knew that we had something that was very special. It was something that was not as known at that time, like donation of an organ. People would ask us ‘What’s happening?’ Everybody thought we wouldn’t survive the operation because that’s how little we knew back then.”

Four decades on, Fiddler wants to raise awareness of organ transplants and organ donation. He was inspired by his family and his brother’s example to pursue a career in health care - he is currently the Indigenous liaison at Flin Flon General Hospital, where he helps bridge possible gaps between people coming to the hospital and medical staff, able to draw on his own experiences to help. The brothers even had a family gathering this year celebrating the anniversary - “Happy 40th Kidneyversary, Harvey and James,” read a sign at the celebration.

Fiddler said he still feels vibrant and healthy - and so, he says, does his brother.

“After 40 years, I still feel healthy. I still feel strong and energetic. When I first volunteered to go, those questions were weighing on my mind - how am I going to be after this? I thought I wouldn’t be able to do stuff that other people do, but you can still do normal things when you donate a kidney - it’s no different than two kidneys.”

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