Achi news desk-
Maryam De Groef says that she and her husband moved countries often and would always apply to be organ donors wherever they lived, but they would never have been able to imagine having to consider that for their children .
Their nine-year-old daughter, Zeynah, died suddenly last spring after going into cardiac arrest following an unexpected allergic reaction. She was taken to the Children’s Hospital at the London Health Sciences Center in London, Ont., and after a few days in hospital she was clinically declared brain dead.
While Zeynah had allergies and asthma, her mother said the reaction that led to her death started in response to eating nuts to which she had not previously reacted.
“It started out quite manageable. She said she had a bit of a stomach ache, but it got worse very quickly from there,” she explained. “We weren’t prepared for that to be the first and last time we used an epi-pen.”
When the family were asked if they would consider donating organs, De Groef said there was no hesitation.
“It was so in line with her personality and what she would have done. And so in honor of her and in honor of serving humanity, we said yes.”
De Groef said Zeynah was kind, compassionate, wild and energetic. She shared stories about her daughter finding a struggling bee and bringing it sugar water until it was good enough to fly away and about a bird hitting the dining room window in their home in London and Zeynah tell her mother that they need to put something up then. that birds would know not to fly into.
Zeynah died in the spring of 2023, just before her 10th birthday.
supplied by LHSC
Although the little girl suffered a cardiac arrest, Dr Rishi Ganesan, who worked closely with the family, said that most organs have some innate ability to recover after loss of blood flow. The team managed to get her heart back, which is why it was possible to donate it.
“During that period of insufficient blood flow to the brain, there was so much brain injury and brain swelling that her brain suffered irreversible brain injury which resulted in death the brain,” he explained.
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“Her heart was still healthy. He was still beating. And this is different to patients who have cardiac arrest mainly because of a heart problem, for example. “
Seven of Zeynah’s organs were donated: the two kidneys, the liver, the pancreas, both eyes and her heart. On an emotional level, the heart was the most important to De Groef. Initially, they had been told it would go to a 27-year-old man.
“I joked with my husband that something didn’t feel right and he said ‘We’ve never done this before, it doesn’t feel right.’ And I said, ‘no, no, this specifically,'” he said.
Then they learned that the heart was not compatible with that patient. De Groef was worried because it was time-sensitive to find a matching donor and there was an additional difficulty because Zeynah had a rare blood type.
Then they learned there was a match: a 10-year-old girl.
“Zeynah would have been ten years old that May 2023, so it felt very divine that my almost 10-year-old daughter’s heart was going to a 10-year-old girl,” she said, emotion heavy in her voice.
“All I could think about was that she was turning ten in this strange way. She’s getting to be ten, and she’s getting to be 11 and 12, and she gets to live this life … now I feel like parts of her are scattered on it’s all over the world that gets to do all these different things and experience all these different things.”
A picture found by Zeynah’s mother after she died.
supplied by LHSC
Zeynah also kept a journal and loved to draw. After her death, De Groef found a picture her daughter had made of a heart with the words “I want to be as happy as a heart flying through the sky.”
“I thought, ‘how appropriate was that?’ Because I know her heart has gone out of state, I don’t know from where,” he said. “There are a few (pictures) like that that have been very helpful in processing the grief and the physical loss… that comes with someone’s death.”
Ganesan said less than two to three percent of people who die, even in a hospital, end up being a donor just because of all the moving parts involved. The organs need to be healthy enough to donate, they need consent to donate and then they need to find a good match.
“That’s why I think Zeynah’s story is so unique, because you had this family who were able to be so selfless that they were able to think beyond this disaster, beyond the situation this horrible, and thought how she could provide the gift of life. to others. And then we were able to support them through that process.”
De Groef encourages everyone to register as an organ donor, noting that the chances of becoming one are slim but you could potentially affect multiple lives.
She added that her faith helped guide her and contrary to what many believe, organ donation is permitted by Islam.
“One of the things it says in the Holy Quran is that whoever saves a life, it is as if he has saved all mankind,” he said.
“When we were in the ICU and we had this feeling of ‘this can’t be the end of her,’ and then we had this opportunity to serve a greater good. And I think the ripple effect of the things you do in this life is so wide. And for her, sometimes I’m at a loss for words about what she did.”
— with files from Ben Harrietha of Global News
& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
