Front line staff at Toronto General Hospital strike a pose. Left to right: Anne Marie Bourgeois, physiotherapist, Brittany Cole, transplant RN, Sophia Cho, physiotherapist, Pauline Harney, lung transplant coordinator.
#GiveLifeUHN
A Monthly Newsletter from
the Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN
As we ease ourselves into the "new normal" it's been incredible to see the living donor and transplant community come together. The outpouring of support for transplant recipients, caregivers and healthcare workers - as well as support for those struggling with liver and kidney disease - proves that we are together, even while we remain apart. It is an uncertain time but knowing that we have a supportive community to turn to has provided many of us with comfort.
There have been an abundance of creative solutions for staying together while physical distancing, and as a result, there's no shortage of safe ways to stay connected to our community - even if you aren't the most tech savvy (scroll down to see what we mean!). If you have any suggestions or ideas to bring us closer together during this time, don't hesitate to share them with us.
Stay safe and keep checking in on each other. See you online!
The Team
Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN
Mental Health Self-Care During COVID-19
For the past few weeks, Dr. Susan Abbey, UHN's Psychiatrist-in-Chief, has been coaching us through the "5 C's of Resilience." For the final installment of her five part series on Mental Health Self-Care During COVID-19, Dr. Abbey draws our focus to "calming."
Calming - A Key to Resilience
We have been using the “5 C’s of Resilience” Framework to consider how we can all cultivate greater resilience during these uncertain and challenging times. This week we will explore the “C” of Calming.
Calming is something we can do to help us when we are experiencing COVID-19 (or non COVID-19) worries, fears, anxieties, insomnia or upset in the body. There are a variety of approaches to help us to “calm down”. A psychiatrist colleague of mine, Dr. Mamta Gautam, introduced me to the ABCs of self-calming. Mamta’s favourites are Allow Your Feelings, Burn off the Energy, Calm Down. When I told another friend who was a kindergarten teacher, she had her own ABCs to help the kids calm down Ask for help, Breathe and Calming Skills. So let’s look at both of these approaches and choose what works for you.
Allow Your Feelings - Most of us make more trouble for ourselves by fighting with our difficult feelings rather than recognizing them and accepting that they are here right now and we need to do something to take care of them and ourselves. Accepting doesn’t mean liking them, it means recognizing that the difficult feelings are here right now and we need to find a way to be with them or work with them. Some ways to allow our feelings include:
Vent our feelings – You can do this with other people or by writing them down or drawing them out. Just giving voice to them usually helps to calm them down.
Allow them to be there - It can seem scary to allow our feelings but they will pass if we don’t add fuel to the fire. Watch the next time that you have an upsetting feeling how long it lasts if you just let it be – don’t fight with it, don’t beat yourself up for having it, don’t catastrophize about how long it will last, and don’t “feed it “ by telling yourself more stories about it. Those stories are like pouring gasoline on a fire – they keep the challenging feelings alive and may even cause them to grow bigger
Ask for Help – If feelings are strong or staying a long time, ask for help. You can do this with friends or family.
Burn off the Energy – There are lots of ways to burn off energy. Go for a walk, do some stretching, shake and move.
Breathe – Focusing on your breath to work with difficult feelings can help a lot. It is a skill you can build. Start using it when you are feeling well and then, as you gain greater ease with the practices, start using it in times of trouble. There are specific “relaxation breathing” practices that help to calm the body and mind. Three popular ones are:
Box breathing – make all of the four parts of the breath – breathing in, holding the breath before the outbreath starts, breathing out and the space until the next in breath starts the same amount of time. Look for box breathing exercises on YouTube.
4-7-8 Breathing – this type of breathing helps to activate your parasympathetic nervous system and calm you. You breathe in to a count of 4, hold for a count of 7 and then breathe out for a count of 8. Doing 3 or 4 of these breathing cycles with a longer exhalation than inhalation calms people. YouTube has a large number of these.
Three Minute Breathing Space – check it out on YouTube or google the term.
Calming Skills/Calming Down – There are many different strategies that help us to calm down. Relaxation strategies like Progressive Muscle Relaxation help many people relax.
Meditation is often not calming initially but it does help us to develop a different relationship with distressing thoughts and to work with them better. Check out www.marc.ucla.edu for their guided meditations or their podcasts. COVID-19 specific meditations are available at 10% Happier Coronavirus Sanity Guide https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide.
By developing our ability to calm ourselves, we will be more resilient and get through this challenging time with greater day to day happiness and better physical and mental health.
Transplant Experts Come Together to Answer Your Questions
There's been some wonderfully informative webinars lately. Don't worry if you missed them - most, if not all, have been recorded and made available to the public. Here's a list of events you might have missed, or that you may want to watch again.
Hosted by the Kidney Foundation of Canada
Featured Speakers: Dr. Pierre Antoine Brown (The Ottawa Hospital), Dr. Adeera Levin (University of British Columbia), Dr. Peter Blake (London Health Sciences Centre)
Hosted by the Kidney Foundation of Canada Featured Speakers: Dr. Istvan Musci (Toronto General Hospital), Dr. Vikas Srinivasan Sridhar (Toronto General Hospital), Dr. Deepali Kumar (Toronto General Hospital)
Hosted by American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Featured Speakers: Dr. Oren K. Fix (Swedish Medical Center), Dr. Mark W. Russo (Carolinas Medical Center), Dr. Elizabeth C. Verna (Columbia University Medical Center)
Living Donor Community Comes Together for Be A Donor Month
April was a busy month for organ donation awareness. We had the opportunity to collaborate with some amazing living donors, transplant recipients, and family of organ donors.
Green Shirt Day was a little bit different this year but that didn't stop Canadians from showing their support on social media.
We absolutely loved the #PassItOn♻️ campaign created by double lung transplant recipient, Tina Proulx. Tina co-leads the Ottawa Gift of Life group, and created #PassItOn♻️ to show Canadians what their decision to become an organ donor means for others, as well as to encourage those who have not yet registered to do so. The campaign brought together UHN living donors and transplant recipients from across the country.
Have the Conversation About Organ Donation is a video we created for NOTDAW (National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week) highlighting the importance of talking about both registered and living organ donation. Everything starts with a conversation, as Toby and Bernadine Boulet (parents of Logan Boulet), Kevin Brennan (transplant recipient) and Heather Badenoch (non-directed living donor) will tell you. Check out the video below or on our YouTube channel.
Have the Conversation About Organ Donation featuring Toby and Bernadine Boulet (Logan Boulet's parents), Kevin Brennan (liver transplant recipient), and Heather Badenoch (non-directed living liver donor).
Living Donors & Transplant Recipients Come Together to Give Back
Living donors and transplant recipients are always asking how they can give back. For many, the transplant experience opens up a whole new world that they want to remain an active part of. The Centre's Volunteer Program has been in the works for a while now, and we were extremely proud to launch during Volunteer Week in April. Learn more about our volunteer program here. You can meet members of our Volunteer Advisory Council by scrolling through our Facebook page.
If you're interested in volunteering with the Centre for Living Organ Donation, get started by filling out our online application form. Volunteer opportunities include: advisory council member, peer mentor, living donation advocate, multilingual speaker, event/booth volunteer, community liaison, and social media advocate. Please note that for the time being, all volunteering is done remotely.
Coming Up in May
International Nurses Day is May 12
Let's come together and celebrate our healthcare heroes!Nursing has always been an essential service. Nurses take care of our most vulnerable, performing a job that many of us wouldn't last one shift in. Their work has always been physically, emotionally and mentally demanding. Despite the toll their efforts take, despite the global pandemic, nurses continue to provide skillful and compassionate care. However you choose to celebrate these heroes, make sure that you do!
Transplant Oncology Webinar on May 21
Join us for Transplant Oncology presented by Dr. Gonzalo Sapisochin, whose innovative study is using living liver donation to treat patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver. To find out more, and to register, click here.
Stay up to date with the Centre's events, transplant research and news, and inspiring stories of living donation by following us on social media.
Mailing Address
The Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN
Toronto General Hospital
585 University Avenue, 11 PMB 100, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2N2 Canada livingorgandonation@uhn.ca
416-340-5400
