Tyler Rosen outside his Innisville, Ont. home on June 20.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
The organizer: Tyler Rosen
The pitch: Donating two organs and raising $7,500 for organ-donation awareness
Tyler Rosen started donating blood about 10 years ago and he always wondered who his blood helped.
He asked the blood-donor clinic for more information and the conversations led to a discussion about organ donations, and livers.
“I learned that the liver grows back and while it’s a major surgery, there’s very little risk,” Mr. Rosen, 33, recalled from his home in Barrie, Ont., where he works in sales.
In December, 2019, he donated 70 per cent of his liver to an elderly man in Ottawa whom he has never met. “My family ended up meeting him in the hospital waiting room on the day of surgery,” he said.
He followed that up in July 2022 by donating his right kidney to a woman he and his girlfriend met on a trip to Mexico. The woman was with her new husband and the couples struck up a friendship. After Mr. Rosen returned home, he found out that the woman had experienced complications while delivering her first child and had developed kidney problems. “I raised my hand and said, ‘Hey, maybe I can help out,’” he said.
Mr. Rosen was already on a list as a potential kidney donor and he asked the hospital if he could make a direct donation to the mother. The hospital agreed and, after some testing, he discovered that he was a perfect match. “It’s one of those situations where it’s as if we were meant to meet on that vacation in Mexico,” he said.
He’s now preparing for a stem-cell donation and he hasn’t stopped giving blood.
He’s also planning to participate in Toronto’s Yorkville Run on Sept. 8 to raise money for the Centre for Living Organ Donation at the University Health Network. He’s hoping to raise $7,500 and help raise awareness about the importance of organ donations.
Mr. Rosen is often asked about his health and whether the donations have had any lasting effects. “My health hasn‘t changed,” he said. He added that he wants people to understand that organ donations are not daunting. “For maybe a month of discomfort, you make such an impact and can change somebody’s life completely, and then resume your life as if nothing ever happened.”