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Something good happened that
day...
January 24, 1985, was a sunny, mild day; a typical January
thaw in Perth,
Ontario. Donna-Marie and her husband Bryan had just finished some shopping and
were walking along the main street. He was holding their seven-month-old
daughter, Jenna-Marie, in his arms, giving her little pecks on the cheek every
few steps.
CRACK.....is all they heard. The
next thing Bryan remembers is being on his hands and knees and seeing
Jenna-Marie, in her pink snowsuit, lying on her back about six feet in front of
him. He looked behind in panic and saw his wife. She was lying on her back,
blood coming out the side of her mouth, still holding the grocery bags. Bryan's immediate
thought; an atomic bomb. When he looked around, all he could see was big chunks
of ice (the coroner's inquest estimated it at 1/2 ton).
A nurse walking on the other side
of the street came rushing to help. An ambulance whisked Donna-Marie and
Jenna-Marie to the Perth War Memorial Hospital. The attending
physician told Bryan his daughter had a large "haematoma" (bump on the head) and that his
wife had a concussion. He told him he wanted to send Jenna-Marie to the
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and admit Donna-Marie for
observations.
Bryan accompanied his daughter to Ottawa.
Once there she underwent a "CAT-scan". The results of that test
revealed a small fracture to the base of her skull. The neurosurgeon told him not to worry, his
daughter would be fine, and that he should return to Perth and attend to his wife. He complied.
The phone call came at 2 a.m., just like in the movies, it was the
neurosurgeon. He told Bryan that he needed his consent to perform emergency surgery. Jenna-Marie's
brain had started to swell and he needed to relieve the pressure. Consent was
given.
The operation lasted seven hours
and saw them having to remove the entire front portion of Jenna-Marie's brain.
Jenna-Marie had just started to walk. Understandably, their first questions to
the neurosurgeons went something like this: Would she ever walk, talk or even
know them? Their answer, "We don't know." They were facing every
parents worst nightmare. They can remember pinching themselves in hopes of
waking from this nightmare. To them this was like the stories they read in big
city newspapers, not in the Perth Courier! Before retiring that night the
neurosurgeons had asked them what they wanted them to do in the event their
daughter had a cardiac arrest during the night, a likelihood based on the
extend of her injuries. Bryan and Donna-Marie, in consultation with family
members, agreed to let nature take its course.
They retired to Ronald McDonald
house. It was difficult for them to focus on anything. Bryan and Donna-Marie
equate it to being in a dark, windowless room with no light at the end of the
tunnel. They did not seem to have many options. Bryan had heard what the physician said, there was little
hope for Jenna-Marie's survival, while Donna-Marie focused on hope.
Bryan can still remember Donna-Marie recounting a commercial she had seen on a Toronto television
network. It involved a little girl by the name of Lindsay Ebrehart and focused
on a public appeal to find her a liver. He recalls his wife's statement,
"If worse was to come to worse maybe we should donate her organs."
This became a turning point of their tragedy ......if
they couldn't change the circumstances of their tragedy, they were going to do
their best to triumph over someone else's. Suddenly, there was light at the end
of the tunnel.
The next morning Bryan and
Donna-Marie went to the ICU and found Jenna-Marie, lying lifeless, connected to
many machines. They immediately approached the attending neurosurgeon and
mentioned their thoughts of organ donation. Bryan recalls the expression on one of the
neurosurgeons faces as of one who just had a thousand pound brick removed from his shoulders
and quotes him as saying, "We wanted to approach you but we just didn't
know how." The rest is history.
THE DARK,
Jenna-Marie Margaret
Bowers died in the early morning of January 26, 1985.
THE LIGHT,
three lives were given
a second chance. Jenna-Marie's liver went to a young boy in Texas and her kidneys went to children in Ohio and New York.
The Bowers now unconditionally
believe that organ donation gives meaning and purpose to human life!
"Being Jenna-Marie's mother
gave me extreme joy. Being the parent of a child who died, was the most
difficult thing I have had to endure in my life. In contrast the act of donating her organs was one of the most
profoundly moving and strangely wonderful experiences I have had. Nothing could
change the outcome of our accident. Fortunately for my family we had the
opportunity to make Jenna-Marie's outcome help others."
Donna-Marie Bowers
"I can remember feeling bad because we were feeling
good when we thought we should be feeling bad. Couples who lose children due to accident statistically fall within a high percentile for separation or divorce.
I credit the ability of being able to donate our daughters organs for rendering
those statistics insignificant in our lives. Organ donation in fact enabled us
to move forward. Today we have three children, Bryson, Trent and Elyse; a
family that collectively rejoices in a renewed life, thanks to organ
donation."
Bryan Bowers
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