Local organ transplant recipient competed at national Games

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on August 24, 2024.

Submitted photo Members of the Alberta Team at the 2024 Canada Transplant Games in Ottawa.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

A local organ transplant recipient is sharing her takeaway from attending the 2024 Canadian Transplant Games that recently took place in Ottawa for the first time.

Sarah Lowry, who is a local liver donor transplant recipient, attended the games with her two sisters – one of them her living donor – and they competed in a variety of events.

“Since it was my first games I didn’t have anything to compare it with, but it exceeded any expectation I had. I didn’t really know how many participants there might be or athletes, but there were about 120 of us and that included recipients, donors, living donors and donor families,” said Lowry.

She explained that events happened throughout the week and even though they were separated into age groups per decades, everyone competed together, whether they were recipients, donors, or members of a donor family.

“It was a lot of fun. My sisters and I participated in the 5K road race, 3K race walk, pétanque as well as the 1,500 run in track and field,” said Lowry.

She said playing pétanque was a lot of fun, but it was a little more than what they have come to learn.

“My sisters and I researched about it, we have gone over the rules before hand, but actually playing it was a different matter. I have played Bocci before and it is very similar with some slight differences, but we liked it so much we bought some pétanque balls to continue here at home,” said Lowry.

She said the next world games are in Germany and they are planning to attend and since pétanque is one of the categories, they want to be able to participate in it.

When it comes to bringing home some medals, Lowry said her sister and herself brought a few back.

“We each brought medals in each of our category or each of the events actually, and since we were in different age groups we were able to bring medals each,” said Lowry.

She said she had the opportunity to step on the podium a few times and brought home three medals herself.

“I had a silver in the 5K road race, my teammate who was from Saskatchewan and I, we were playing doubles so we both got gold and then in the 3,000 I got gold as well and in the 1,500 gold as well,” said Lowry.

She was referring to the 1,500 metre and 3,000 metre race walk events in the Track and Field categories. In total Lowry received three gold medals and one silver.

Despite the achievements in the various events, for Lowry meeting other recipients and hearing about their journey was something that she said it was very important to her.

“It was really great to meet all the other participants, recipients, living donors and other donor family members. It was a really great atmosphere, there was a lot of positivity and like a celebratory mood,” said Lowry.

She said in part this was because it had been six years since the last time the games took place and therefore everyone was eager to catch up with people they had met and known from previous games.

“It was my first time there but everyone was very welcoming, encouraging and in all of our events separated teams by province and so everyone in the Alberta team was cheering for each other,” said Lowry.

She said one of her takeaways from the games was the importance of sharing her journey and encouraging others to learn about organ donation.

“It was great to meet different people, hear their stories and the sort of the progress they had made since their transplant, as well as what they’re doing to spread awareness of organ donation,” said Lowry.