It was the difficult loss of his partner who died waiting for a transplant that inspired Mike Loader to give the gift of life. Three years later he would become part of a chain of kindness through the Kidney Paired Donation Program.

The concept of kidney paired donation is a chain reaction. Sometimes, when a patient needs a kidney transplant they have a willing donor who isn’t a match. With the Kidney Paired Donation Program, these incompatible pairs are added to a chain of other incompatible pairs, or anonymous donors like Loader. A donor is matched with a compatible recipient, and in turn, the person in their original pair receives a compatible kidney. The chain works to fill the most high priority cases first.

In May, the national program reached the 1,000th transplant milestone, thanks to the St. Michael’s Kidney Transplant Program and others like it. These 1,000 people represent those who may have otherwise never received a transplant, or had to wait much longer to receive a kidney from the deceased donor waiting list.

Loader’s journey to donation started in 2017. His partner, Michael, had died of cystic fibrosis. A couple of years later, Loader read an article about paired liver donation and a woman who had donated anonymously.

Mike Loader

After taking time to grieve, Loader felt he was ready to turn a new chapter in 2019.

“The medical care Michael received at St. Michael’s was fantastic. I would do anything to help the medical team.”

He discovered the Kidney Transplant Program, got in touch with the hospital, and became a kidney donor in 2020.

“I was so happy to do it, I felt a sense of euphoria,” he said. “Looking back, it had something to do with the grieving process.”

Loader is one of 220 non-directed anonymous donors who have participated in chains across Canada, helping 681 people receive a kidney transplant by donating through the program. 

It was that opportunity to spread kindness and give back that appealed to Krista Treleaven, another anonymous donor at St. Michael’s who participated in Kidney Paired Donation. She has been a lifelong blood donor, encouraged by the cause.

“It’s just always something I’ve done.”

Looking for another way to impact others, she decided kidney paired donation was for her after having conversations with St. Michael’s staff in the Kidney Transplant Program.

Founded in 1969, the St. Michael’s Kidney Transplant Program is one of the largest adult kidney transplant programs in Canada. The program transplants between 120 to 140 kidneys a year. At any given time, there are hundreds of patients being actively followed in the post-transplant ambulatory clinic. Many of these patients are those participating in the kidney paired donation program, the donors and recipients who are part of the chain reaction.

Krista Treleaven

“It’s not always something you think about,” Treleaven said. “Living donors aren’t something you hear about often.”

When asked why donate a kidney, Treleaven’s reply is a resounding, “Why not?”

After reviewing the information given to her, she felt it was her calling at that moment in time. Her surgery took place in fall 2022.

“I would do it all over again in a heartbeat,” she said.

Neither Loader nor Treleaven know who their kidneys went to or how many people were in their chain, as the donation and recipient information remained anonymous. This doesn’t matter to either of them – knowing someone’s life has been drastically improved is more than enough.

“Going through this experience felt like restoring karmic balance,” Loader said.

Learn more about this milestone.

By: Caitie Lehman