Anne-Marie

Here is a recap on who we are celebrating during February.

   

In honour of Heart Month this year, we are celebrating our beautiful friend Anne-Marie.

She underwent a heart transplant five months ago and is now on the road to recovery.

She is one amazing human being and continues to impress and inspire us with her strength and positive outlook on life.  Here's a little glimpse of her past.

A photo of Anne-Marie at birth at the hospital.  Anne-Marie was born March 30th, 1979 at the Ottawa General Hospital, and was brought to CHEO right away by ambulance.
She was born with a congenital heart defect called tricuspid atresia and pulmonary atresia.  Anne-Marie had heart surgery the day she was born and two open heart surgeries by the age of 4.

Anne-Marie's brothers visiting her at Toronto's Sick Kids.  She was 4 years old here getting her Fontan surgery.  The little girl in the photo was another patient Anne-Marie hung out with.
(After recovery from the Fontan procedure, Anne-Marie was at CHEO until she graduated to the Heart Institute's adult congenital heart clinic)

Anne-Marie had a trampoline in their backyard which she wasn't supposed to go on and couldn't really handle, but would go on it anyways. ;)

She would get tired quickly and would lie down on the step in their backyard.

Anne-Marie playing with her lego set.  She later realized looking at this photo that it was a hospital lego set.

Anne-Marie with her mother Suzanne Pinel (For those of you born in the 80's, you might recognize Suzanne...she is the
oh so famous Marie Soleil ;) !

Before Anne-Marie's surgery when she was four years old, she asked the doctor if she could have some chips when her surgery was over.  (She was on a very strict low sodium diet and wasn't usually allowed to have them)
The doctor said yes.  So Anne-Marie also asked him if she could get a dog, and he said yes she could.

When Anne-Marie's mother, Suzanne, was speaking with the doctor she was naturally very nervous about the surgery and was crying.  She didn't want him to think she didn't have confidence in him so she explained that she was crying because she was terrified of dogs and didn't know why the doctor had said to her daughter she could get a dog.

The surgeon let Suzanne know that if the surgery worked, it would only give Anne-Marie a few years and she unfortunately would not live past the age of 10.  So he explained to Suzanne that if her daughter woke up from the surgery, he would tell her that she could only get a dog when she turned 10 years old.
Anne-Marie proved everyone wrong and DID turn 10.  So Suzanne HAD to get Anne-Marie a dog.
xo



We will be donating $2 from each sale this month to Anne-Marie's fundraiser of choice, which is the Ottawa Heart Institute.  You can also donate by buying $2 paper hearts here at viens avec moi.