FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — When 49-year-old Mike Daigle went to the emergency room for a broken finger in 2012, he had no idea that the visit would lead to a diagnosis of kidney disease and six years of hoping to find a kidney donor.
Daigle, who works for Acadia Medical Supply in Fort Fairfield, was delivering a liquid oxygen tank to a home in Madawaska when the tank fell and he broke a finger trying to steady the tank. The next day his boss encouraged him to go to the nearest emergency room and so he did.
“The doctor found that my blood pressure was 180 over 120. They said I was ‘like a time bomb,’” Mike Daigle said, while recounting the story at home in Fort Fairfield on March 1 with his wife, Tiffany Daigle. “They sent me to a kidney doctor in Bangor and that’s when I found out that my kidney function was only at 22 percent.”
“It was devastating because no one in Mike’s family had ever had kidney problems,” Tiffany Daigle said.
The diagnosis was the beginning of many trips to doctor’s appointments in Bangor and Portland and a stricter diet that involves avoiding foods with high levels of phosphorus because his kidneys are unable to balance that chemical or remove waste products from food properly. He monitored his kidney function and was able to avoid dialysis treatment for four years.
But in 2016, Daigle’s kidney function fell to eight percent and he began peritoneal dialysis. Unlike hemodialysis, which involves patients going to a dialysis clinic, peritoneal dialysis allows people to give themselves treatments at home, work or while traveling.
“I wanted to still work for 40 hours a week, but I don’t sleep well at night because even though I’m hooked up to the dialysis machine for nine hours I have to wake up to make sure the fluids are draining properly,” Daigle said. “And at 6 every night I do a manual exchange for two hours because if I did the full 11 hours at night I wouldn’t be able to go to work.”
Despite the financial and emotional hardships they’ve been through, the Daigles, who have four sons, remain hopeful of finding a kidney donor and recently set up a Facebook page called “A Kidney for Mike” in hopes of increasing awareness. Tiffany Daigle said that there have been potential donors who have gone through the two to three month process of health and blood tests to determine if they’re eligible, but so far nothing has produced a match for Mike.
She writes on the Facebook page that her husband would prefer a kidney from a living donor because those kidneys last an average of 26 years compared to 15 years when obtained from a deceased donor. The couple also encourages anyone interested in donating to seek more information from the National Kidney Registry, which is affiliated with the Maine Medical Center Transplant Program in Portland.
One criteria for kidney donation is that the donor’s blood type must match that of the recipient.
Mike’s blood type is O positive, Tiffany Daigle said. “He couldn’t go on the living donation list until 2016 after he started dialysis. Before that he could only be on the deceased donor list.”
Both Mike and Tiffany Daigle said that even though Mike’s initial diagnosis was painful to deal with, their family has been able to confront all challenges because of their faith in God and each other as well as the support they’ve received from family, friends and their community.
“I try to take everything one day at a time. Some days are harder than others, but knowing that I have Tiffany’s support and wanting to be around for my children is what keeps me going,” Mike Daigle said.
“I think all of this has made me realize how strong we are and how much of that strength comes from our faith and staying close as a family,” Tiffany Daigle said. “I’ve learned that no matter what happens we don’t have to go through it alone.”
She ended by saying that kidney donation can bring about a great gift to donors themselves as well as recipients.
“It sounds like a scary thing to be without an organ, but the best thing would be able to give somebody life,” Tiffany Daigle said. “I think that would be the greatest gift.”
Editor’s note: This version corrects Mike Daigle’s blood type to O positive.
