SASKATOONEXPRESS - December 5-11, 2016 - Page 1
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Volume 14, Issue 47, Week of December 5, 2016
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
The greatest gift Sister donates kidney to her brother Cam Hutchinson Saskatoon Express ifting a kidney to her brother was one of the easiest decisions Mia Hollinger has ever made. “Honestly, it takes me longer to decide what to wear for a day,” she said four weeks after the surgery. Hollinger and her brother, Jason Karapita, laughed and cried as they told the story of their journey. The love the siblings share was told through their words, voices and eyes. “I think anybody in my situation would do the exact same thing, especially if you have a relationship like we have,” Hollinger said. “We have always been so close.” Hollinger is a 38-year-old married mother of two. Karapita turned 40 on Nov. 27. “I feel better than I have in a lot of years. It’s been life altering,” he said. Karapita has had kidney disease for almost as long as he can remember. He said he was eight or nine years old when a problem was discovered. He said being from a small town, it wasn’t followed up on. Looking back, Hollinger said it now makes sense that her brother was having kidney problems as a child. “The funniest story is when Jason was little, he would always steal the juice and ENCH.2016starphoenixadTOPRESS.pdf 2 drinks and things like that. On the farm
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Mia Hollinger gifted one of her kidneys to her brother, Jason Karapita, on Oct. 25. (Candace Epp Photo) we had our juice boxes but they were meant for school only. “He’d steal juice boxes and hide them in his room. I always thought as a kid that was so funny, but now it was so reflective of how he was feeling. When you have kidney disease you are so thirsty all the time, so when you think back it all makes so much sense.” Fourteen years ago Karapita was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. It was expected he would soon be on dialysis or have a kidney transplant. Hollinger was living in the Cayman 2016-11-09 2:36 PM Islands at the time. She got home as
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quickly as possible and went through the extensive testing to see if she was a match for her brother. She said the kidney team here was incredible then and is incredible now. With her flying home, everything was waiting for her arrival. She was a match, but it turned out they didn’t have the surgeries and Karapita didn’t even need dialysis. He kept on going with his one functioning kidney. At the time of the surgery in October, that kidney was working at 10 to 12 per cent and this time dialysis loomed. “It happened so gradually that I didn’t noticed how I was feeling,” he
said. “If anybody ever asked or the doctors asked me how I was feeling I said, ‘I feel fine.’ It was so gradual that my energy was being taken away. I have lived a fairly normal life — worked on drilling rigs. It hasn’t impeded me a whole bunch.” He said he was reluctant to accept a kidney from his sister. “She has children (ages three and two). There were times when I didn’t want her to do it for that reason. My greatest fear was her kids might need something in the future and she’s given it to me.” (Continued on page 5)
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