Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

By Jill Sperling

FUNDRAISER FOR FERRIS

Community rallying together for Kamloops youngster facing rare kidney condition

Apr 23, 2021 | 5:07 PM

KAMLOOPS — Ferris Backmeyer is a bright, smily four-year-old. What her face doesn’t show is the incredible stress that her tiny body has been through over the past few years.

Ferris has Mainzer-Saldino syndrome, which brought upon kidney failure at an extremely young age and the need for a new kidney.

“Shortly after COVID hit there was a hold put on all transplants actually, it was I want to say a couple of months,” said Lindsay Backmeyer, Ferris’s mother. “All people that were waiting were kind of taken off, just like all the surgeries got cancelled. So there were a couple of months when she wasn’t listed then. And then she kind of just got listed again, or they started doing transplants again in the summer — like in June I think — and then she got sick.”

The Backmeyers ended up in Vancouver for the summer as Ferris was treated for an infection in her stomach.

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“Her catheter where we do the dialysis had to come out and when it comes out then she had to switch to hemodialysis,” Lindsey said, “and BC Children’s is the only place in B.C. that offers hemodialysis for pediatric patients, so that meant we had to move down there.”

Shortly after Christmas, the Backmeyers got the call they were hoping for. There was a kidney for Ferris.

“We went down, it was very exciting, she got admitted, she did all the tests and then when they were harvesting the organs of the deceased donor, they decided that it wasn’t suitable for Ferris,” Lindsey said.

The family faced yet another disappointment when Ferris finally did receive a kidney, but the transplant failed.

“Ultimately, Ferris ended up going back to the OR at about 3 in the morning and they had to remove the kidney, she was profusely bleeding, and she came back out into the ICU on a ventilator and without a kidney.”

The next steps aren’t fully known. It’s likely the Backmeyers will make several more long-term trips to Vancouver.

“Financially, they’re struggling,” said Taunya Romano, a friend of Lindsey’s. “They’re having to maintain their travel costs when they go to the coast, and then they’re having to maintain their financial responsibilities when they’re here. And one of the most (profound) things that I’ve heard from one of the hospitalists that I work with is if you have the … ability, you also have that responsibility.”

Romano is one of two friends hosting an online silent auction to help the Backmeyer family.

“We have been fortunate enough to get… close to 150 donors that have donated items from as beautiful and pure and innocent as a 12-year-old child painted a picture and she wanted Ferris to get the reward of that,” Romano said. “It’s an absolute sweet cute picture to people that are giving up their vacation homes, businesses that are giving people stay-cations.”

After a difficult year for Ferris and her family, the support is greatly appreciated.

“It’s overwhelming and it created so much emotion seeing names that I know,” Lindsey said. “So many I don’t, but still out of the kindness of their hearts they’re trying to help my family and how can you not just feel so warm and fuzzy?”