North Vancouver man gives father gift of life

North Vancouver resident and father of four Ahmed Elneweihi was given a Father’s Day gift he never anticipated receiving — his son’s liver.

Two years ago, Ahmed, 68, discovered he had a tumour in his liver. Ahmed went through treatment and the tumor disappeared for a year, but during a follow-up appointment, his physician informed him that the tumour had reappeared.

“I exhausted all types of procedures that were not major surgery to deal with the tumour,” Ahmed stated in an interview Thursday. “They did not work. The only alternative I was left with was a liver transplant.”

Ahmed was told that he would have to find a living volunteer, but the waiting list was estimated to be one or two years. Ahmed did not have time for that.

“I asked myself, ‘Where am I going to find a living donor?’” he said.

Ahmed’s children, Tarek, Sameer, Dalia and Nadia, were all willing to donate. Following blood tests, it was found that three of his children were not correct matches. Only Sameer, 30, was deemed suitable to be his liver donor.

According to B.C. Transplant, living donor liver transplantation involves the removal of approximately half of a healthy liver to replace one that is diseased. The procedure is major surgery and can last up to 10 hours for the donor and 12 hours for the recipient. Following surgery, the liver begins to regenerate, with the donor’s and recipient’s returning to a normal size within roughly four to eight weeks.

The success rate of liver transplants is quite high, with the one-year patient survival rate in B.C. listed as 85.8 per cent.

When Ahmed and Sameer were told the news, it was originally Ahmed who held reservations about continuing on with the surgery.

“I was concerned and worried about my son because I read on the Internet that there are some dangers to donors,” he said. “We discussed it and I saw that he was quite willing to do it, and he told me he was not concerned about himself, and that he was more concerned about me.”

On Nov. 22, 2010 Ahmed and Sameer entered the operating room at Vancouver General Hospital. Following 11 hours of surgery performed by three surgeons, Ahmed exited the operating room with 40 per cent of Sameer’s liver in his body. Both father and son were expected to make a full recovery.

Ahmed’s wife, Georgina, stated that she was “incredibly thankful” when the physicians informed her that both her son and husband were going to be okay.

“That was, of course, only the first part,” she said, remembering the surgery retrospectively.

Sameer made a quick recovery, and was out of the hospital within a week. Ahmed was not as lucky. There were some minor complications with his surgery, and he needed to receive blood transfusions on multiple occasions. For an entire month, Ahmed was regulated to his hospital bed.

“My family formed a 24/7 support group for me,” he said. “I was never alone in the hospital, my wife and four children were taking shifts being with me.”

For Sameer, the sacrifice he made for his father turned out to be more than just a donation of an internal organ. Sameer is now a fourth year psychology major at Simon Fraser University. The operation was initially scheduled to be in January, unfortunately for him it was rescheduled for late November 2010, right in the middle of final exam preparation.

“I figured that everything would work out well because (SFU’s) second semester starts in January, and I would just take that term off,” he said. “But because the surgery was in November I had to pull out of that semester and I had to wait to March and April to write my exams.”

Looking back on it now Sameer said, “I’m just glad that it went well and I was happy to be the one able to do it.”

Now seven months after the surgery, both Ahmed and Sameer have made a full recovery. Ahmed will be returning to work as a consultant for BC Hydro in the next few weeks, and Sameer has returned to his summer job at London Drugs.

This Father’s Day and as Ahmed joked, every Father’s Day after this, Sameer will be exempt from having to get his father a gift.

“Given the advantage of now knowing where I am now, I am glad that I had the procedure,” stated Ahmed. “I am very grateful to all the surgeons and nursing staff at Vancouver General, and I’m happy for what has happened. I would do it again.”

Hopefully, for his and Sameer’s sake, he will not have to.

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