THUNDER BAY -- Maybe it's a special kind of friend who gives a kidney to save a life. Maybe anyone could be that kind of a friend to a stranger.
For almost all of 2008, Terry Gallant was taking dialysis 11 hours a day for kidney failure. Had his friend Jennifer de Bakker decided not to donate her kidney, he doubted he'd be at Sunday's Kidney Walk seven years later.
Instead, the owner of Ozone and Street Legal walked Thunder Bay's waterfront with his new bride and donated the money his family and staff raised to help families in his situation.
"I'm here today because of the wonderful gift of Jennifer and without that, I probably wouldn't be here today so I understand where people are with very little hope. I think we as a community can get behind that and rally and try to give a little more hope to people who are waiting."
De Bakker was afraid at first when she and a group of friends were tested to see whether her kidneys would be a match for Gallant.
"Most definitely, it was scary. It's the unknown of how you'll feel afterwards but seeing him healthy and happy is truly a miracle," she said.
"I don't think I thought of it too much until I was a match. Once I knew I was a match, I knew I had to help him."
Marion Harms is the local chapter coordinator for the Canadian Kidney Foundation. She was encouraging those who turned up for the one-kilometre or three-kilometre walks to fill out donor cards that would support those living with kidney disease, whose numbers have tripled over the last 20 years.
"The importance of having the walk is to make people aware one in 10 people have kidney disease," Harms said.
"We're trying ot get people to see their doctor and make sure tehy don't have kideny disease because it's a silent killer."
Nine people are on a list awaiting a donor at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre but Ron Fetala isn't among them. He rode a motorized scooter for the walk with a sign taped to the seat's rear that read, "I'm walking for me."
Fetala has been a cancer survivor since the same year Gallant had his kidney transplant. He does dialysis three times a week to compensate for the damage the bladder cancer did to his kidneys. One was removed and the other failed in 2014. Unrelated breathing problems make his doctors doubtful he'd survive the operation so he wheeled the walk for research.
"It's just one day at a time," he said. "I've fought through lots of things through my life so I'm used to fighting. As long as I live a good and peaceful life, I'm happy."
