Former Lethbridge Hurricane hoping for kidney donor
By Lethbridge Herald on April 7, 2021.
Former WHL player, Ryan Smith, born and raised in Taber, Alberta, is currently sidelined and could use some noise to get his story broadcast. The former athlete, who now resides in Kelowna, needs a shiny new kidney to put him back on his skates. Sons Sampson and Cedric would love a chance for Dad to be healthy enough to show them some stick-handling moves.Smith is a former WHL player who played with the Brandon Wheat Kings (’91-’93), the Lethbridge Hurricanes (’93-’94), and the Prince George Cougars (’94-’95). Smith played in the “DUB” for six years, and after his WHL hockey years came to a close when he was 20, he continued on with his athletic talents while getting an education. Hockey was able to balance with his summer sports in his formative years, playing Vauxhall Spurs Baseball on his hockey off-seasons, and out to the links as often as possible. After leaving the WHL, golf resurfaced, and he earned a scholarship on the Columbia Basin College Golf Team roster for 1995-1996. To complete his post-secondary education, he returned to Alberta and earned a hockey scholarship at the University of Lethbridge for 1997-1998.
Ryan’s physicality lent itself to the next chapter of his life, when he pursued work in the oil patch as a rig-hand, an excavator, and a backhoe operator on oil pipelines.
All that work had to come to an end about four years ago when his body started showing serious symptoms that led to renal failure.
Smith was diagnosed with IGA Nephropathy, a common kidney disease that leads to renal failure in nearly half the patients affected. Within a year, his kidney function had fallen from 50 per cent to seven per cent, and in April 2019 had to begin dialysis.
Smith, whose support team includes his wife, Kerrie, and his sons Sampson (6) and Cedric (4), is attached to a dialysis machine for a little over four hours, three times a week. He has made the decision to dialyze at home, and has bravely taken on this medical obstacle in order to spend more time with his young boys.
Unfortunately, Smith also experiences some extremely severe side-effects of renal failure, and these make it challenging to be that engaged stay-at-home-Dad.
Kidney disease can go undetected in many patients for years, as it did with Smith. Untreated high blood pressure is a major problem for many kidney patients, although with so many people, it goes unchecked because you feel just fine. Kidney damage is irreversible and there is no cure for IGA Nephropathy. That leaves only two options for Smith- his current dialysis treatments every other day, or a transplant. Because 78 per cent of Canadians who are on the transplant waitlist are waiting for a kidney, finding a living donor is a much better option for Smith and his family.
Smith has been on dialysis for nearly two years, and the wait time for those on the transplant list is four or more years. He has been placed on the deceased donor list, but is hoping to find a living donor to hopefully move the process along more quickly.
Smith has been assessed for transplant at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. To inquire about how you can start the process of being tested to become Smith’s living donor, call: 1(877) 922-9822 or email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca
Either method will connect you with staff who can direct you to the steps you need to take to begin the testing process. 2
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