Cree family urges organ donation

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A solemn ceremony took place on the Alexander First Nation on April 29, as a Cree family prayed for support for a decision they've made that they hope will save their brother's life.

Robert Bruno, 54, suffers from Hepatitis C, a condition he contracted through a blood transfusion. He is in the final, life-threatening stages of the liver disease. Matthew Bruno, 50, his brother, is undergoing extensive medical testing to see if he can donate liver tissue than would save Robert's life. As the disease worsens, the family can only wait and hope that the tissue transplant will go ahead in time.

Cree traditions require that the body go to the spirit world intact. The entire family has struggled with the idea of an organ transplant because it offends those traditions. But a younger sister said she and her family, after much deliberation and consultation with Elders, have decided the right thing to do is to take steps to preserve the life of a loved one.

After recently losing her 48-year-old husband to heart disease, a condition that could have been treated with a transplant, Audrey Gladue couldn't sit back and watch her brother waste away when a liver transplant could save his life.

"With our traditions, we were really torn," she said. "Our traditional culture has a lot to do with people being buried with all their parts. But there is a need for this organ donation."

After agonizing over the decision, now that the family has made it, they're going all out and urging others to sign organ donor cards.

"A lot of us have signed them. Why take it with you when you can save a life? We watched the love between our two older brothers. Matthew was willing to do anything to save him. So we went through what we had to do in traditional ways to prepare for it," she said.

Bruno has been on the national waiting list for almost three years and has worked his way close to the top of that list. But his condition is worsening at a pace that may mean the wait is too long.

Gladue strongly urges more people to donate organs after their death. Her brother has five children and four grandchildren and they need him in their lives, she said.

"Those children have watched their dad go through a lot."