Two families in Canada are enjoying the best of times these days.
What has brought even more joy to the life of 57-year-old Cameron “Cam” Trotman, who was born in Bank Hall Cross Road in Barbados but who has lived in Canada since 1964, and to the home of Richard Enright, 52, a Canadian by birth, is the realization that for the first time in years the golfing buddies can expect to enjoy good health for decades to come.
One of them, the Bajan, was battling kidney failure and after receiving “a gift of life” has quickly regained his stride.
“I feel fine and I am looking forward to being on the course once again with my friend,” Trotman told the SUNDAY SUN from his Ottawa home.
Enright put it differently. “Seeing him walking around, playing golf with me, that will be my reward.”
The two men of different ethnic backgrounds but with common interests – humanity, friendship, golf and good family life – are now inextricably linked through a kidney. Enright gave Trotman one of his vital organs and that has improved the Bajan’s chances of living much longer.
“There are no words I can use to thank him enough,” he said.
“It’s a gift of life. When someone is so generous you have to be thankful because he didn’t have to do it.”
Two months have passed since the operation in Ottawa and both donor and recipient are back at home with their families.
Enright works with Trotman’s wife, Francine, in Canada’s Ministry of Finance where she is a manager of communications.
Trotman is recuperating, eating with gusto and, best of all, seeing no signs of organ rejection.
“Things have gone extremely well. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome,” he said. “I was on dialysis before the operation and that often left me feeling weak. I didn’t have an appetite back then, now I eat like a horse and can’t get enough cou cou. When you consider that I didn’t really like cou cou before and now I want as much as I can get, that should tell you how great I feel. My wife Francine enjoys cou cou, although she doesn’t know how to stir it.”
Trotman, the son of Mildred Trotman, is a soft-spoken retired corporate administrator who was diagnosed with diabetes a decade ago. As the disease attacked his body, the kidneys began to fail, forcing him to hook himself up to a dialysis machine every night at home to remove any impurities from the blood. The trouble was that the procedure left him feeling fatigued, cut his appetite, forced him and his French Canadian wife of 26 years to keep close tabs on his blood pressure, and held out the dim prospect of a reduced lifespan. It soon became clear that a transplant was an absolute necessity.
“My brother Clyde wanted to give me one of his kidneys,” Trotman explained.
But what he didn’t know was that things were moving in a different direction. Enright, with whom he played golf about eight times a year and who lives in Quebec, hit upon an idea: why not give him one of his kidneys? After all, Enright’s father was born with a single kidney and he lived for more than 50 years.
There was another reason. He had heard countless stories from his wife, Lucie, a former nurse on a hospital dialysis unit, about the trying times patients endured – frequent hospital visits, limits on what they could do and anxious years waiting for a donor that’s a match. The Canadian decided to give Trotman one of his. But there was something else.
“He wanted to keep it a secret from me until the last possible minute,” Trotman said. “He succeeded in doing that but only for a while. By then it was clear he was a match and I had become aware of it.
“What he did was an incredible, unselfish act and I am very grateful. I am very fortunate to have a friend who was willing to donate a kidney. Now, I may be able to squeeze another 20 years into my life. Just as important, I have a wife who is caring and attentive. I am blessed. Giving is an aspect of my family; we have it in us to give.”
Trotman left Barbados when he was 11 years old and had just won a place at The Lodge School but didn’t take it up because he was going to Canada with his mother.
These days he hopes his well-publicized story would inspire others to consider organ donation.
“The media must help create an awareness of the importance of giving organs. That’s what I would like to see in Barbados,” Trotman added.
