Lise St. Jean is a fighter.
The lifelong Timmins woman is feeling good after receiving a kidney transplant about seven months ago.
You may remember her from a Schumacher billboard. In 2019, St. Jean was in the final stages of renal failure and looking for a kidney transplant. To find a live donor, she launched a public campaign.
The public school board, where she was working at the time, put out a call for support, people attached decals to their vehicles and a billboard on the highway helped get the word out.
St. Jean started dialysis in December 2019 and received a kidney in August 2021
The day she found out there was a match, she recalls being pretty excited.
“(The donor) is an unbelievable miracle. She never backed off, she never quit because I was having a hard time because I was on dialysis and in between dialysis I got sick, but I had to … pick myself up and believe that I’m going to get a new life.
"So I fought because I knew I had a kidney transplant and I had a donor waiting for me. I fought until I was perfect health to get a phone call from Toronto and say ‘you are ready, Lise,’” she says.
The donor is a stranger to St. Jean. They did meet a couple of years ago but haven't connected since because of COVID. St. Jean says they will meet again and describes her as a "phenomenal lady".
St. Jean's new kidney is "working fantastic" and she feels like she's in a new body.
“I just turned 60 years old Oct. 7 and right now I feel like I’m 45 years old. My body wants to go, but I have to take it easy — no pushing, no lifting — it could take a couple of years to be perfect. But my body wants to go all the time, I have to slow down,” she said.
Kidney donations are the most frequent type of living organ donation, according to the Kidney Foundation.
While donations are often from family members, a genetic link is beneficial, but not required, to be a donor.
St. Jean's advice for people considering being a donor is to "go for it".
She also has a message for people looking for a match.
“The one thing I would say, you want a kidney — you have to advertise. You have to fight, it’s your life,” she said.
