November 5, 2025

Successful Kidney Transplant was a Full Circle Moment for a Mom and Son at St. Joe’s

Craig Thompson has always been an athlete. He attended Queen’s University and played varsity football as he pursued his undergraduate degree. After graduation, Craig’s finesse on the field as a defensive end led him to Denmark where he played professional football for a year. Upon his return to Canada, Craig embarked on a successful career as a banking, capital markets and wealth management professional, but he never stopped competing.

Last summer, Craig took part in the World Master’s Athletics Championships (WMAC) in Sweden. It’s an elite competition that attracts thousands of athletes from countries all over the world between the ages of 35 to 100. The 800m and 1500m running distances are his competition events, and Craig hit times of 2:13 and 4:46, respectively.

What’s even more impressive is that Craig achieved all of this less than six months after donating one of his kidneys to his mom, Cathie.

“A couple of years ago, my mom’s kidney function began to decline. I learned that it’s something that happens to all of us at the rate of about one percent each year after the age of 50,” explains Craig. “But for my mom, her kidney function had declined to the point where she was faced with two options: begin dialysis or receive a kidney transplant from a willing donor.”

Craig immediately volunteered to be tested as a live kidney donor. But a mother’s first instinct is to protect her children, so at first, his mom outright refused to consider it.

“That’s when I put on my salesman’s hat,” says Craig. “I convinced mom that there was no downside to me getting tested. In fact, I got the most thorough medical workup anyone could ask for.”

Over the next few months, Craig and Cathie would undergo a gauntlet of tests, meetings with social workers and transplant counselors, and education sessions with the kidney care team at St. Joe’s. The more they learned, the more certain this tight-knit family became that this son-to-mother transplant was the best way forward.

“My mom was worried about me. I’m an active guy, a husband, and a dad of two young boys. I run…a lot. But deep down, I already knew that even if this surgery meant that I could never run again, I still wanted to be able to give my mom more good years as the grandma to my two boys, Jack and George. She gave birth to me at St. Joe’s in 1982, and forty-two years later, I had the chance to give her life back to her here. It was a full circle moment for our family.”

In March 2024, Craig and Cathie’s respective surgeries were performed at St. Joe’s by Dr. Rahul Bansal. “A living donor kidney transplant offers the maximum chance of success for patients like Cathie who are living with end stage renal disease. Typically, a parent-child relation has a 50 percent chance of organ compatibility. In the case of Craig and Cathie, it was a very good match, meaning it was very likely to be a successful transplant,” says Dr. Bansal. Craig went home within a few days, and his mother, shortly thereafter.

Cathie says, “I felt very blessed to have been cared for by Drs. Lanktree, Treleaven, Bansal, Gangji and P’Ng, along with nurses Melodie Jensen and Cindy Adema. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the support I received from the post-transplant care team and pharmacist Cathy Burger. There was no end to the compassion, support, education and professionalism in the care I received to guide me into my future life.”

While Cathie was recovering, Craig started his long road back to running. He started with short walks shuffling down the hallway at home and progressed to longer ones outside. Week by week, and month by month, Craig got faster. Soon he felt hopeful that his goal of competing in the 2024 World Master’s Athletics Championships might still be within his grasp.

“I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I ended up having a great showing in Sweden. With my wife and sons watching from the stands, I matched my time set two years ago. At my age, you usually get slower every year, so I call that a win. Maybe I’m a bit faster without that second kidney weighing me down,” says Craig with a grin.

Inside Cathie, Craig’s kidney is now functioning at 90 percent and giving his mom a new lease on life.

“I feel great, and I’m so enjoying my renewed health and wellbeing,” she says. “My friends often ask me if I am faster now that I have a runner’s kidney inside me, but my answer is always the same: sadly, I have not yet experienced that transformation!”

And as for Craig, he says he’s in the best shape of his life. “I feel the same as I did before the surgery thanks to the care I received at St. Joe’s and the rock-solid support of my wife, Jennifer. My boys didn’t always understand why their daddy couldn’t wrestle and play like we used to for a few months. But Jennifer patiently explained how we were helping grandma and soon daddy would be back to his superhero self. I’m really grateful to her.”

In appreciation for the care Craig and Cathie received at St. Joe’s, Craig made a $5,000 gift of securities while Cathie and her husband Bob made a $100,000 commitment to the Hospital. Both gifts will support leading-edge education and training for kidney care clinicians at St. Joe’s.

“The Hamilton and area communities that are served by St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s Renal Transplant Unit are fortunate to be on the receiving end of a world class team of dedicated individuals,” says Cathie who’s approaching the two-year anniversary of her transplant. “I’m grateful to them, and also to my son, Craig. He’s the real hero in my kidney transplant journey. Without his act of selflessness my life would have turned out very differently.”