Boston and his Family Could use Help. #kidney disease

Hello, our names are Bonnie and Garry Pichette. We are family of Boston and his parents Cheryl and Shawn. Boston has an illness called Alport’s syndrome https://www.kidney.org/kidney-topics/alport-syndrome . Boston recently had a kidney transplant on March 13, 2025, which happened to be World Kidney Day! Boston had been doing fantastic since the transplant, exceeding all the doctors’ expectations. On Friday, March 28 he had bloodwork and a follow up appointment with his team, and everything was perfect, and the team was talking about possibly being discharged home early, because of how well he was doing. After the appointment Boston and his mom and dad and sister London travelled to Toronto, as his dad and London were planning on flying home the next day, as Boston was doing so well. Boston and his dad attended at Toronto Raptors game that night, where Boston got to meet a Toronto Raptor, Chris Boucher. He said it was the best day ever!

Saturday Boston and his mom and dad and London went for breakfast together and were saying goodbye at the airport. As you can imagine, this was an emotional time. Suddenly as Boston was giving his dad a hug, Boston experienced a sharp pain to the area his new kidney was. Everyone said their goodbyes and Boston and his mom left to go get some Tylenol for the pain. As they were driving, Boston kept getting this severe pain. He lowered his seat, but Boston started to have difficulty breathing. Cheryl looked over and saw that Boston’s lips had turned white. Cheryl pulled into the first place she could and called 911. The ambulance came quickly and took Boston and Cheryl to the closest emergency department, which they later found out was Mississauga Hospital. While as the ER, the did bloodwork, urine samples, and contacted Toronto Sick Kids hospital. At that point Shawn and London had already boarded their plane and at the last second asked the stewardess to let them off. They got off the plane, with no luggage as they couldn’t get it off the plane and it got sent back to Thunder Bay. Now Toronto Sick Kids team was on their way to pick-up Boston and Cheryl. Once they arrived, they were trying to stabilize Boston’s blood pressure, which kept dropping to seriously low levels. After about 45 minutes they were finally in the ambulance and headed towards Toronto Sick Kids. Once they arrived, there was about 25 people waiting, Doctors, nurses, social workers, child life specialists. Quite overwhelming for everyone. This is where they learn that Boston was bleeding internally and unsure of where the bleeding was coming from, and he was going to have to go to the OR. In the ER at sick kids, Boston received about 3 units of blood, and his blood pressure was still not going up. He was getting IV’s and lines put all over his body. They then got him up to the ICU, where they were pumping him with blood that was continuing to bleed out as it was going in. The hospital at that time called a code transfusion, which meant that no one else in the hospital could transfuse a patient because they needed all the blood available for Boston.

Then the surgeons came to talk to Shawn and Cheryl and let them know that Boston needed to go in for emergency surgery and with the blood loss and low blood pressure, there was a possibility that his kidney would not make it through the surgery and that possibly Boston also would not make it through. Every parent’s worst nightmare, losing their child. Roughly around 630 they took Boston into surgery. There was about 9 coolers of blood that were brought into the OR, they lost count after around 10 units of blood were given. Around the 3–4-hour mark into Boston’s surgery, they came to let Shawn and Cheryl know that they were able to find the source of the bleed and were able to stop it. A blood vessel that was attached to his new kidney had been torn off. Even though Boston was stable, there was still more hours of surgery to fix the kidney. Around 3-4 in the morning, they came to tell Shawn and Cheryl that Boston made it through but were uncertain about his new kidney, as it had not had blood going through it for a long time. But at least Boston was still here, they saved his life!

Today, March 31, they found out that Boston’s new kidney is not working, there is no blood going through and it will need to be removed. Boston has been started on dialysis and will now have to continue to be on dialysis until a new kidney is found.

All of Cheryl and Boston’s belongings they had brought down are not stuck in London. Shawn and London’s luggage is in Thunder Bay. They are staying at a hotel currently. They ae unsure of how long they will be in Toronto and then going back to London. Unfortunately, this leaves Shawn with no income and Cheryl with a partial income. There is a lot of uncertain for them right now, and we wanted to start this Go Fund me to help take off some of the burden off of them and they can help continue to be with Boston in his time of need.

www.kidney.org