Vancouver shoe designer John Fluevog is known around the world for his unique and colourful footwear.
Now he has created another shoe, a very personal tribute to a longtime friend who will forever be a part of his story.
In 2025, Fluevog’s decades-long battle with polycystic kidney disease came to a head and he learned he would need either dialysis or a transplant.
“My brain went, ‘Oh, I had no idea. Do you buy these things? Where do you get them?’” Fluevog said, laughing.
He put out word that he needed a kidney donor and a longtime and dear friend stepped up.
“The moment I realized I could do this is when I saw my blood match, and I knew I had to do this,” Patty Carmichael said.
“There was a stir within me and I knew this wasn’t coincidental and I knew I had to do it.”
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Fluevog said his wife broke down in tears when Carmichael revealed her decision and he said he couldn’t believe it.
There are about 4,000 Canadians on the organ transplant list and more than 2,900 are waiting for a kidney.
“Kidney disease has really flown under the radar,” Kidney Foundation Board Director Megan Owen-Evans said.
“It’s not widely recognized as being the killer of Canadians that it is. One in 10 Canadians are impacted by kidney disease and over 50,000 Canadians are living with kidney failure.”
Fluevog’s doctor, John Gill, says a transplant has far better outcomes than dialysis for the patient and for the cost to the health-care system.
“When someone donates a kidney, not only are they giving life to somebody and transforming that person’s life, they’re also contributing a huge benefit to society,” Gill said.
Fluevog said that both he and Carmichael healed quickly.
Carmichael went on a week-long hike a few months after the surgery and Fluevog got to work doing what he does best.
He has now designed the kidney shoe and named it Patty.
Carmichael said she is overwhelmed at the gesture.
Partial proceeds from the sale will go to the Kidney Foundation.
Fluevog is also hoping that his story will encourage potential donors to step forward and give a gift that will change a life.
“What a wonderful part of humanity that people can do that,” he said.
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