Life sweeter after husband receives kidney from wife

Darren Reynes is able to celebrate "the sweet things in life" thanks to his wife, Michelle.

He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was eight years old and spent several years on dialysis because of kidney failure.

In 2004, Michelle, now 41, decided she would donate a kidney to her husband, now 42.

"If it wasn't for my wife, I don't know if I would have had the ability to get off of dialysis," Reynes told a news conference Tuesday at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute. "Very fortunate to have that second chance."

• Alberta hopes organ registry will improve donation rates
• Only 8 per cent of Albertans registered as organ donors

Reynes also received a pancreas from a deceased donor in 2008, further allowing him to "live without the handcuffs of the secondary complications to diabetes."

Health Minister Sarah Hoffman invited the couple, from Edmonton, to share their success story to encourage more Albertans to sign up for the province's fairly new organ registry.

"The Reynes are living proof of how organ and tissue donation can save lives," Hoffman said. "This is only possible when individuals make the choice to become a donor and their families understand and support their choice."

Since the Organ and Tissue Donation Registry was started three years ago, more than 330,000 Albertans have registered to be organ donors, Hoffman said.

However, 600 people are still on waiting lists for organs and thousands more are waiting for tissue transplants.

Alberta was the first province to directly ask people if they wanted to donate through registry offices.

About 2,500 Albertans sign up every week to become organ and tissue donors, the government said. Fifty-eight per cent of registrants are female; 42 per cent are male.

Organ donors saved 380 lives in 2015, an 11-per-cent increase over the 342 transplants done in 2014, the government said.