Morgyn’s Heart Journey
Morgyn and her twin sister Myla were born February 3, 2009 at just 32 weeks old in Saskatoon, weighing 3lbs and 4lbs 2 oz. Myla was a healthy baby girl that only stayed 22 days in the NICU at the Royal University Hospital. Morgyn wasn’t so lucky. Morgyn was born with pulmonary atresia with a VSD and ASD and had her first open heart surgery at 8 weeks old in Edmonton, Alberta at the Children’s Hospital. Between The Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, The Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and The General Hospital in Regina, Morgyn spent a total of 97 days in the NICU. She was finally discharged on Mother’s Day (May 10th) and got to go home and be with her sister again. Just 12 days after Morgyn’s second birthday she traveled back to Edmonton and had her second open heart surgery.
Morgyn is a healthy 14 year old today and loves to read, camp and hang out with her friends. She goes for yearly check ups at the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital to make sure everything is still good. Morgyn will need another surgery in the near future, but they just don’t know when.
Heart Month Cookie Fundraiser
We started the fundraiser to help raise money for MLHF because every summer I (Morgyn) get to go to CHAMPS camp in Saskatoon. I would like other kids to experience the camp and meet others that have heart conditions like them. Raising the money is important to me because CHAMPS camp helps me learn more about living with my heart condition and to know that I am not alone. It also helped me feel more comfortable around my doctors because they join us during the camp. They play games with us and go swimming with us and it just makes me happy.
During the month of February my family and I bake chocolate chip cookies and sell them for a donation. There’s no set amount that they have to donate, it’s whatever people want to give. Each year the fundraiser gets bigger and bigger with more businesses and strangers placing orders. We started a group on Facebook where people can place their orders and keep updated throughout the month. This year we baked 446 dozen cookies and raised $8035. We started the fundraiser in 2020 and in 3 years have raised a total of $15,043. If people don’t raise money for foundations like the Mending Little Hearts Fund of Saskatchewan then they can’t put on camps or other activities for kids to be able to feel normal or learn more about themselves.