INTERNATIONAL ORGAN DONATION AWARENESS-TORONTO, CANADA

Kids walk a mile for their dad

Man with failing liver waits for a donor

By IAN ROBERTSON, Toronto Sun

Teenaged Aurora siblings Marla and Blair Cuthbert would easily walk a mile for their liver-frail dad.

On Wednesday, along with 20 friends and transplant recipient George Marcello, they did just that — and a lot more.

They trekked 3 1/2 hours from Yonge St. and Steeles Aves. to Queen’s Park to make a public appeal in the media gallery for someone to volunteer the gift of life for Bruce Cuthbert.

Outside, they lit a torch blessed nine years ago by Pope John Paul II and recently carried from Alaska to Argentina by Marcello, 54. He is carrying the “Torch of Life” around the world to promote organ donations.

Diagnosed two years ago with a failing liver, Cuthbert, 51, a software salesman, had hoped to join the walk, his daughter Marla, 19, said. Instead, he was admitted to Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket a week ago, doctors grimly predicting he may last only a month without a transplant, Marla said. No compatible donors have surfaced, she said. Her dad has B-positive blood, Marla has A-positive, “so I wasn’t a match,” Marla said. Blair, 17, is too young and uncle Brad Cuthbert, was ruled out during testing due to the physical dimensions of his liver, she said.

So Cuthbert’s children sit and wait with their dad, every day when possible. “He tells us we’re his inspiration,” Marla told The Sun.

Alison Cuthbert frets for her children, who obviously care for their father, their daughter said. “She worries about us.” The downside of walking to the Ontario Legislature building was Cuthbert’s absence and his children not being with him. “We’re going every day,” Marla told The Sun, worrying “what if we have a little busy one day and there is no extra day? “The only thing we can do to help, we can’t do,” she said. “It’s hard to just sit there sit around and wait for somebody to help and nobody really is.”

Christian music producer Clairmont Humphrey, 48, of Mississauga, whose donation of part of his liver in 2008 saved the life of little Jadai Marae Fairman, was with them. He knew the family of the child, now well and almost three years old, and decided to help.

“You do it because you want to help somebody and you want somebody’s life extended,” he said.