The death
“Can you turn back time? », asks Marie-Hélène Bouchard to the doctor in intensive care.
The doctor has just announced to Marie-Hélène Bouchard that her son Shawn, 14, suffered a longboard accident. That the doctors at Charles-Le Moyne hospital did everything to save his life. But that Shawn is brain dead. He is being kept alive artificially and will not wake up.
All she wants is to go back a few hours early, before the worst night of her life. “I’m going to keep Shawn with me at home, he won’t go snowboarding,” the mother swears to the doctor who listens helplessly.
A few hours earlier, Shawn Faucher had dinner at home with his family with his parents and his little brother Thomas. After dinner, he goes snowboarding without his helmet. Because 14 year olds and helmets don’t always go hand in hand…
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Marie-Hélène Bouchard
“I can still see him leaving with his smile,” says Marie-Hélène Bouchard with emotion. He was smiling, in a good mood. »
“Shawn was a happy teenager who loved life,” she said.
When he came home, everyone knew him. He was an intensely good boy. He was mountain biking, skateboarding. He played the guitar. A week before his death, he had performed Nirvana at the school’s end-of-year performance.
Marie-Hélène Bouchard, about her son Shawn
That evening in June 2019, Shawn went snowboarding and never came home. Around 9 p.m., after looking for him in the neighborhood, his parents called the police. The police quickly arrive at the house. Shawn had an accident, he had to go to Charles-Le Moyne hospital, on the South Shore of Montreal.
At the hospital, the doctors tell them the worst news you can tell parents: Shawn is brain dead. His condition is irreversible. He won’t wake up.
“The world is falling apart,” says Marie-Hélène Bouchard.
During the worst 24 hours of their lives, Marie-Hélène Bouchard and her partner Simon Faucher then had a decision to make: what to do with their son’s organs?
The gift
The next morning, Shawn is still kept on life support.
His parents call family, friends, relatives. Everyone gathers at the hospital for a farewell ceremony. We play guitar. We cry.
At the same time, Transplant Québec nurses and hospital staff talk to the Faucher family about organ donation.
Organ donation can save the life of the recipient.
For the donor’s family, knowing that the last act of a loved one will be to save the life of a stranger allows (sometimes) to put a light balm on immense pain. “It’s a little spark on the blackboard,” says the DD Annie Lavigne, internist intensivist at Charles-Le Moyne hospital and one of the doctors who treated Shawn.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The DD Annie Lavigne, internist intensivist at Charles-Le Moyne hospital
In Quebec, if the deceased was unable to communicate his intentions – this is the case for Shawn, who arrived unconscious at the hospital – it is the family who decides.
In theory, between 80% and 98% of Quebecers are in favor of organ donation, according to surveys.
In practice, when it’s your 14 year old child, theory takes a backseat and lots of questions go through your head. “Everything is painful, we don’t understand what’s happening,” says Marie-Hélène.
Simon Faucher and Marie-Hélène Bouchard obviously did not discuss organ donation with their 14-year-old son, who had his whole life ahead of him.
“At the worst time of their lives, a lot is asked of (members of) the donor family. It’s very paradoxical. That’s why we have to take our time, go step by step,” says Danielle Grondines, organ donation liaison nurse for Transplant Québec, the organization that manages organ donations from the deceased.
Hospital staff approach organ donation gradually, five or six times. Before making a final decision, the doctor does a final examination. Shawn won’t wake up. It’s time to make a decision.
“We know Shawn and his big heart,” says Marie-Hélène Bouchard. We decided we accepted. »
Shawn was going to die, his story ends there, but he still has a mission to do. A great mission: that of saving other people.
Marie-Hélène Bouchard
The hospital organizes the farewell ceremony with family and loved ones. His little brother Thomas sees Shawn for the last time.
Then around 9 p.m., the ambulance that will take Shawn to Sainte-Justine hospital, where the organ donation will take place, arrives.
Shawn is taken to his final resting place.
Jade
Two months after Shawn’s death, the Faucher family received news from Transplant Québec.
This is Jade’s family1 who writes to say thank you.
Jade, who received Shawn’s heart.
The two teenagers were around the same age. They both loved music. In winter 2019, while Shawn went to see Loud at the Bell Center, Jade missed a Billie Eilish concert because she was hospitalized in Sainte-Justine. She can’t leave the hospital without a new heart.
The Transplant Québec correspondence program is anonymous and confidential. But Shawn and Jade’s mothers begin to leave discreet clues in the letters sent by Transplant Québec. With the help of social networks, they find each other and meet. Then Marie-Hélène Bouchard meets Jade, who carries her son’s heart. Now 18, Jade will start college this fall.
Marie-Hélène Bouchard thinks of her son Shawn several times a day. ” It is unfair. We don’t mourn, we will carry this all our lives, she says. We were really broken, but we got back together. It eases the grief knowing that Jade is traveling with Shawn’s heart. »
In addition to his heart, Shawn donated his lungs and kidneys to other recipients.
Shawn saved five lives. We are very proud of our hero.
Marie-Hélène Bouchard
This year, for the first time, Marie-Hélène Bouchard agrees to tell this story publicly as part of National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week. To help families who will have to face the same terrible and unfair situation.
Each year, between 150 and 200 Quebecers who give up the ghost donate their organs. They are heroes, saving lives.
Their loved ones, who often have to make the decision to donate organs, also demonstrate great resilience. Taking an action that is as altruistic as it is painful is profoundly courageous.
“These are such difficult decisions,” says Marie-Hélène Bouchard. It’s a decision we make with our hearts. If my son Thomas, my family, my friends or my loved ones ever had a serious health problem and they needed a transplant, I hope that we would do everything to save their lives. »
1. For medical confidentiality reasons, we have changed the name of the girl who received Shawn’s heart.
Planning your organ donation
Do you want to donate your organs when you die? There are three ways to indicate your intentions. The simplest: sign the authorization on the back of your health insurance card. You can also register in the Quebec health insurance register or consult a notary. In hospital, in practice, the final decision rests with the family of the deceased. Hence the importance of talking to your loved ones and signing your health insurance card. “If we cannot save the person, we can at least respect their last wishes,” says the DD Annie Lavigne, internist intensivist at Charles-Le Moyne hospital. When the family sees that the person has signed their health insurance card, it is very often a relief: they do not have to wonder what the deceased, who had clearly expressed his wishes, would have wanted. Throughout his career, the DD Lavigne has never seen a case where a family did not respect a deceased person’s wishes to donate their organs.
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Learn more
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- 569
- In 2023, 569 people benefited from organ donation from a deceased person in Quebec. We transplanted 47 hearts, 324 kidneys, 184 lungs, 125 livers and 16 pancreases.
Source: Transplant Quebec
- 206
- Number of deceased Quebecers who donated organs in 2023
Source: Transplant Quebec
reference: www.lapresse.ca