Shilpa Raju with husband and kidney donor Nundhun Kongovi. Ms. Raju hopes that her participation in the five-kilometre walk will send a message about the importance of organ donations.Supplied
The organizer: Shilpa Raju
The pitch: Raising $1,000 and climbing
The cause: Medical innovation at Toronto’s University Health Network
Every cancer survivor faces challenges but few have experienced the difficulties Shilpa Raju has endured.
Ms. Raju 39, was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2007 just as she was finishing her undergraduate degree in public health. She went through months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Toward the end of the chemotherapy she started having breathing trouble. Doctors said it was a side effect of one of the drugs.
Ms. Raju’s condition, pulmonary fibrosis, gradually worsened and in 2012 she had a double lung transplant at Toronto General Hospital, part of the University Health Network. Her recovery did not go well and she was in the hospital for two months. She also developed post-transplant lymphoma, which occurs because the body’s immune system has been suppressed by medication to prevent organ rejection.
Her health finally improved in November, 2013. She began to lead a fairly normal life and returned full-time to her job as an epidemiologist. She met her future husband, Nundhun Kongovi, at a friend’s wedding in Houston in 2015, and they married three years later in Toronto. She even completed a five-kilometre walk as part of the 2022 Toronto Waterfront Marathon in honour of the tenth anniversary of her lung transplant.
But she soon started feeling out of breath again. Doctors said her oxygen level was fine but her kidney function had been severely reduced because of the anti-rejection medication. She needed a kidney transplant.
Mr. Kongovi offered to donate one of his kidneys and he proved to be a perfect match. He and his wife underwent transplant surgery at Toronto General in December, 2023.
“And this time, I kid you not, it was like a dream transplant,” Ms. Raju recalled from her home in Toronto. They both recovered within days. “It’s been, touch wood, like a dream ever since,” she said.
Ms. Raju is feeling so strong that on May 31 she plans to participate in We Walk UHNITED, a five-kilometre walk through downtown Toronto to raise money for the UHN Foundation. “I have been so fortunate that I’ve had ongoing care there,” she said adding that she has raised around $1,000 so far.
She hopes that her participation will also send a message about the importance of organ donations. “My focus is on how can we do this better, and how can we make this better for other people,” she said.