Emails with the subject “Tahlia has new lungs!” have been flying out of Judy Robichaud’s inbox.
Her 16-year-old granddaughter Tahlia Ali from Cole Harbour was all set for a double-lung surgery in April but was delayed by the pandemic. In May, realizing they couldn’t wait anymore, Robichaud set out toward the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto in an RV with Tahlia and her mother Lisa Ali. Tahlia had idiopathic pulmonary hypertension. She also had and enlarged heart with holes in it.
Robichaud returned to Nova Scotia, but has since visited Lisa and Tahlia in their strict isolation in an AirBnB rental in Toronto — a city that has seen intense case numbers of COVID-19.
But on Friday, Nov. 13, a day many people consider unlucky, Lisa was driving back from the grocery store and talking to Robichaud on the phone when another call came in: She was told to get Tahlia ready for transplant surgery.
Hopeful but scared
“You hold your breath, right? Because you can have what they call a dry run and they told us this and that your first call might not necessarily be your transplant call,” Robichaud said.
“Right away you’re happy, you’re excited, you can’t believe it, but at the same time you’re afraid.”
When the surgery was bumped, they started to really worry. But on Monday, Nov. 16, Tahlia was ready to go.
“We didn’t know until 15 minutes before going in that she was actually going to go in.”
Robichaud suspects the lungs came from someone who was on life support in the hospital and that’s why they had such late notice.
The surgery took over 12 hours. When the surgeons got in there to fix Tahlia’s heart before doing the transplant, they realized it was in worse shape than they thought, and it took more work.
For days post-surgery, Tahlia had irregular heart rhythms that were unexpected, but each day it got better, Robichaud said.
“They got her out of bed (Monday). They sat her up and she has tubes coming out of every orifice. She was on 15 IVs, now she’s only on 12,” Robichaud said. “You know how you see those machines by the side of the bed? She must have at least eight different machines attached to her.”
Tahlia hasn’t been speaking much, Robichaud said. She burned out most of her voice exclaiming “I did it!” while her mother filmed her.
Heartfelt thank-you
Robichaud has many emotions that are hard to put into words when she thinks of the donor and their family. She has no idea who they are but is so grateful.
“She’s been given a second chance and all this joy and celebration we have because she has a set of lungs, but at the same time I feel such a strong sense of sadness for this family,” Robichaud said.
Seeing the other side
A member of their extended family had a unique and difficult reaction to hearing Tahlia’s good news. Robichaud’s nephew Vic O’Neail lost his 18-year-old son Christian in their hometown of Winnipeg in 2013. He suffered immense brain damage and his family made the decision to donate his organs.
In an email, O’Neail said the moment is very clear in his memory.
“Sitting in the cold meeting room of the hospital, just having come to the realization that our son would not survive and having to make a decision that we will remember for the rest of our lives,” he wrote.
In the end, they just knew it’s what Christian would have wanted.
When Robichaud informed him of Tahlia’s double-lung transplant, O’Neail said he was conflicted: He was happy for Tahlia but filled with understanding and sorrow for the donor’s family.
“After seeing Tahlia's ‘I did it’ video, I had an overwhelming awareness of what our son had done seven years ago. The gift that he gave. The result of his gift is life. Life for someone that we will see grow and blossom in our family. That being said, I still ache for the loss of my son. That won't go away but we are healing every day.”
Recovery
Tahlia still has a hard road ahead. She will be in the hospital for at least three more weeks, then she’ll have to stay in Toronto for about three months for monitoring before they can come home to Nova Scotia. After that, she will have to return to Toronto three times for followup.
“I’m very proud of her. She amazes me every day,” Robichaud said.
“She has so much joy. I just think how can she have so much joy when she’s going through what she’s going through?”
Also thankful
Robichaud said she is also very thankful for everyone who has donated to their gofundme account which Lisa and Tahlia have been depending on to pay for their expenses while staying in Toronto.
