A year ago, Dennis Mock’s life changed as he received the kidney for which he’d been waiting four years.
“‘Fantastic,’ that’s the word I’ve been using for about a year,” Mock said.
Mock’s kidney had shut down and he received a transplant from a deceased donor.
Mock said he “got a call late one Saturday night, and less than 24 hours later I got a new chance at life.”
Mock said a number of people wait much longer than he did.
Mock spent much time on dialysis and said initially he had to travel to Saskatoon until he was able to stay in the Battlefords.
Mock had Alport’s syndrome, a genetic condition characterized by kidney disease and possibly hearing loss and eye abnormalities. Mock likened his syndrome to “sclerosis of the kidney.”
Dialysis involved lying down for three to four hours a day, three days a week, as his blood was cleaned.
Mock said quality of life was suppressed greatly, and that working was “pretty hard.”
“No one wants to hire someone who can only work a quarter of the time,” Mock said.
Mock said he thinks what the provincial government is doing for organ donor registration is important.
“All it takes is one thing to happen, and the shoe’s on your foot now, and you want a kidney,” Mock said, as an argument against organ donation skepticism
