Ottawa Valley teen searching for living kidney donor

A 17-year-old boy in the Ottawa Valley is looking for a living kidney donor by February. CTV”s Dylan Dyson has more.

A 17-year-old boy in the Ottawa Valley is in need of a new kidney.

Lucas Gillan was born with just one kidney, he has chronic kidney failure, and if he doesn’t find a new kidney, he faces a difficult path in the new year.

“In the new year, if a kidney transplant is not available yet, I will be starting dialysis,” Gillan told CTV News Ottawa on Tuesday.

“So, every night I’ll have to be hooked up to a machine, and it will transfer the toxins out of my stomach. I don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. It’s definitely something I do not want to do.”

To date, the Grade 12 student at Arnprior District High School says he has lived life like any other teenager; fishing on the Ottawa River, fixing up cars with his father Chris, and taking care of his family’s highland cows.

But in September, Gillan’s doctors told him that, after hitting a growth spurt, his lone kidney cannot keep up with the rest of his body, starting the clock on the search for a donor.

“The doctors always said someday he will need a kidney transplant,” said Chris Gillan, Lucas’s father.

“OK, so now we need a kidney,” his mother Angela Gillan recalls thinking after hearing the news from doctors. “Who are we going to ask? How do you put that out there?”

It was then that family and friends of Lucas put out a call on social media for a living donor. Doctors told the family a deceased donor would not be an ideal fit, as the organ would not last as long as needed.

Members on both sides of Gillan’s family stepped forward to be tested as a match. Unfortunately, many did not meet the criteria.

But the family says close friends have also put up their hands to be tested, with nearly a dozen going through the process of having blood and tissue tested for a perfect match.

“It’s been overwhelming, it really has,” Angela said.

“I remember sitting at the doctor’s office at the (Ottawa Hospital General Campus) and them saying, ‘Yeah, we’re going to have to start the process.’ And I thought, OK, that time has come.”

Starting dialysis would mean a big shift in day-to-day life for Lucas, with extensive equipment being brought into his home and the family needing to undergo thorough medical training.

It’s prevented Lucas from making post-secondary plans for when he graduates high school next spring.

“February is like the date planned for dialysis,” said Lucas.

“If a kidney is not available by then, just because that’s when one of my semesters ends at school, and then from there I can do online classes if I need to.”

No donor has been found yet. Doctors tell the Gillan family they are confident in finding a perfect match within 10 donor applicants.

Lucas’s mother says even if a match isn’t found for her son, getting more people tested as a possible match can provide optimism for others in need of a kidney.

“I often say, the miracle out of all of this is that Lucas gets a kidney and maybe a few other people get a kidney out of it.”