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As a doctor, a transplant expert, as an organ recipient, Aubrey Goldstein knew how dire things were in April.
Who, after all, but an arrestingly honest man would say:
“If we’re getting close to the end and I don’t get another transplant, I don’t regret anything. I lived a full life,” he told us with a profound candour.
“A couple of people die every day on the transplant list. I’ve been super fortunate. If this is it, I have to accept that.”
This was it, sadly. Goldstein, 63, died this month waiting for a second liver transplant in a Toronto hospital, 19 years after receiving his first life-saving organ — and heartbreakingly close to being matched again.
“We found out about a week before he died that a friend was a match and was prepared to go through the surgery immediately,” said his wife, Caroline, 50, on Tuesday. By then, Goldstein was barely conscious, his blood pressure in terrible shape, his physical state not robust enough to undergo a 12-hour operation from a live donor.
Dr. Aubrey Goldstein had a liver transplant in 1998 and found out earlier this year that he needed another one.
“But I’m not bothering with the what-ifs,” she said, adding that Aubrey would have understood the medical decision, for himself and the donor.
During our two-hour visit to his Glebe home in April, he spoke not about the gloom in his diagnosis but the gratitude in his heart.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky to have 19 extra years,” he told me and photographer Errol McGihon. “And I’ve done a lot of things in those 19 years. I haven’t waited until I retired to travel, see the world.”
Goldstein was the one-time president of the Canadian Transplant Association, a multiple medal winner at the Canadian and World Transplant Games, an emergency room physician who moved into chronic care and medical research, an organ-donation advocate, a husband, brother and son.
“Life has been very good. I’ve been very fortunate in a lot of ways.”
A Windsor native, he began to feel ill while at medical school in Hamilton in the early 1980s. Though he sought help from a number of specialists, it took 13 years to diagnose primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic disease that narrows the bile ducts and has severe impacts on the circulatory system.
He was in crisis when he flew to London, Ont., in May 1998 for the first transplant, which turned his life around.
Goldstein said his energy levels surged, allowing him to resume many of his old physical activities — golf, tennis, cycling, hiking, running — and compete in transplant games in Canada and places like South Africa and Australia. In his basement workout room, some of the 20-odd medals hung on a wall.
Caroline was right there with him. “We lived together for seven years and celebrated the seven-year itch by getting married,” she joked of their official marriage, 15 years ago.
Post-transplant, his professional life thrived. Once an emergency room physician, he worked at Bruyère Continuing Care (rising to vice-president) and at Health Canada, where he studied transplant medications in the clinical trials office. He was an active volunteer, dispensing guidance through the support group PSC Partners to people around the world due to his unusual position as a physician, patient and organ recipient.
“He’s an amazingly compassionate guy,” said his brother Will, 62, a Windsor lawyer.
“I think the amazing character trait that he had was his selflessness. People have contacted me online from around the world, people he never met, who he apparently counselled.”
Goldstein began to feel sick again about two years ago when telltale symptoms of liver failure returned: unexplained fatigue, itchiness, weight loss. It became apparent within a few months he needed a second liver, not unheard of for transplant cases in Ontario. Since 2012, there have been roughly 1,300 liver transplants in the province. Of those, 25 needed a second transplant in the same period.
Goldstein declined slowly during the summer but was able to travel to Windsor in September for his mother’s 90th birthday. By then, he was sleeping 16 to 18 hours a day.
While in Windsor, he lost his balance and fell, suffering serious fractures. He was taken to hospital in London where — as if a loop were being closed — he met members of the first transplant team. He was transferred to Toronto General Hospital on Oct. 2 with the hopes of receiving a second organ.
Before he died on Oct. 8, said Caroline, friends flew up from California, Missouri and North Carolina for a bedside vigil.
“Oh boy,” said Caroline, when asked to describe her husband. “Gentle, really sensitive to the needs of others.” He was hyper-aware of other people’s feelings, she said.
“He used to say you can tell the doctors who have never been sick themselves.”
A drop-in gathering to honour Goldstein’s life is planned for the evening of Nov. 16 at the Glebe Community Centre.
“I feel great sadness today,” Caroline wrote on Thanksgiving, “but even greater gratitude. Gratitude for the life I had with Aubrey.”
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com.
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
Who, after all, but an arrestingly honest man would say:
“If we’re getting close to the end and I don’t get another transplant, I don’t regret anything. I lived a full life,” he told us with a profound candour.
“A couple of people die every day on the transplant list. I’ve been super fortunate. If this is it, I have to accept that.”
This was it, sadly. Goldstein, 63, died this month waiting for a second liver transplant in a Toronto hospital, 19 years after receiving his first life-saving organ — and heartbreakingly close to being matched again.
“We found out about a week before he died that a friend was a match and was prepared to go through the surgery immediately,” said his wife, Caroline, 50, on Tuesday. By then, Goldstein was barely conscious, his blood pressure in terrible shape, his physical state not robust enough to undergo a 12-hour operation from a live donor.
Dr. Aubrey Goldstein had a liver transplant in 1998 and found out earlier this year that he needed another one.
“But I’m not bothering with the what-ifs,” she said, adding that Aubrey would have understood the medical decision, for himself and the donor.
During our two-hour visit to his Glebe home in April, he spoke not about the gloom in his diagnosis but the gratitude in his heart.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky to have 19 extra years,” he told me and photographer Errol McGihon. “And I’ve done a lot of things in those 19 years. I haven’t waited until I retired to travel, see the world.”
Goldstein was the one-time president of the Canadian Transplant Association, a multiple medal winner at the Canadian and World Transplant Games, an emergency room physician who moved into chronic care and medical research, an organ-donation advocate, a husband, brother and son.
“Life has been very good. I’ve been very fortunate in a lot of ways.”
A Windsor native, he began to feel ill while at medical school in Hamilton in the early 1980s. Though he sought help from a number of specialists, it took 13 years to diagnose primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic disease that narrows the bile ducts and has severe impacts on the circulatory system.
He was in crisis when he flew to London, Ont., in May 1998 for the first transplant, which turned his life around.
Goldstein said his energy levels surged, allowing him to resume many of his old physical activities — golf, tennis, cycling, hiking, running — and compete in transplant games in Canada and places like South Africa and Australia. In his basement workout room, some of the 20-odd medals hung on a wall.
Caroline was right there with him. “We lived together for seven years and celebrated the seven-year itch by getting married,” she joked of their official marriage, 15 years ago.
Post-transplant, his professional life thrived. Once an emergency room physician, he worked at Bruyère Continuing Care (rising to vice-president) and at Health Canada, where he studied transplant medications in the clinical trials office. He was an active volunteer, dispensing guidance through the support group PSC Partners to people around the world due to his unusual position as a physician, patient and organ recipient.
“He’s an amazingly compassionate guy,” said his brother Will, 62, a Windsor lawyer.
“I think the amazing character trait that he had was his selflessness. People have contacted me online from around the world, people he never met, who he apparently counselled.”
Goldstein began to feel sick again about two years ago when telltale symptoms of liver failure returned: unexplained fatigue, itchiness, weight loss. It became apparent within a few months he needed a second liver, not unheard of for transplant cases in Ontario. Since 2012, there have been roughly 1,300 liver transplants in the province. Of those, 25 needed a second transplant in the same period.
Goldstein declined slowly during the summer but was able to travel to Windsor in September for his mother’s 90th birthday. By then, he was sleeping 16 to 18 hours a day.
While in Windsor, he lost his balance and fell, suffering serious fractures. He was taken to hospital in London where — as if a loop were being closed — he met members of the first transplant team. He was transferred to Toronto General Hospital on Oct. 2 with the hopes of receiving a second organ.
Before he died on Oct. 8, said Caroline, friends flew up from California, Missouri and North Carolina for a bedside vigil.
“Oh boy,” said Caroline, when asked to describe her husband. “Gentle, really sensitive to the needs of others.” He was hyper-aware of other people’s feelings, she said.
“He used to say you can tell the doctors who have never been sick themselves.”
A drop-in gathering to honour Goldstein’s life is planned for the evening of Nov. 16 at the Glebe Community Centre.
“I feel great sadness today,” Caroline wrote on Thanksgiving, “but even greater gratitude. Gratitude for the life I had with Aubrey.”
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com.
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
