Born with a serious heart defect, little Olivia escaped death thanks to the expertise of doctors in Quebec and Boston. Seven years later, her father committed to cycling the 600 kilometers that separate the two cities to thank them and celebrate his daughter’s life.
From the Center Hospitalier de l’Université Laval (CHUL), where his daughter is being treated, Lévis’ father left Friday morning for Boston Children’s Hospital in the Massachusetts capital, along with 10 cycling friends supporting his cause.
Photo Dominique Lelievre
The goal is to raise funds for the Fondation en cœur, which helps families like his, but also to pay tribute to his daughter’s exceptional courage and to the medical teams on both sides of the border who saved her life.
“On the second day there will be great mountains. We will surely be exhausted […]but it’s nothing compared to the mountains these kids have [malades] have to overcome,” said Pierre Nadeau from Lévis about his three-day trip.
Photo Dominique Lelievre
Last way out
Olivia Suzor-Nadeau was only a few weeks old when her problems began. “We realized the extent of the damage to his heart. She had two holes in her heart and a leaky valve,” her father said.
The first operations were unsuccessful. “There were no more options,” he says, except for an experimental technique developed in Boston — using the Melody valve to replace a child’s mitral valve — that had never been tried in Canada.
By a happy coincidence, the doctor who followed Olivia at CHUL, cardiac surgeon Frédéric Jacques, had been introduced to this procedure during a previous stay at Harvard.
Photo Dominique Lelievre
An example
The operation, which lasted several hours, was successful in the then eight-month-old child. In total, she will undergo 15 surgeries in her first year of life. Despite her difficulties, her zest for life is contagious at the age of 7.
“It is certain that it is a disabled child who has special needs [en matière] language, diet, [avec des] still in diapers at 7 but she is happy, she is full of life, she makes us happy. We know that we have other challenges ahead of us, but during the time that we have this luck, we take the opportunity to give something back to the next,” says Pierre Nadeau.
Photo Dominique Lelievre
“Olivia is exceptional in many ways,” adds Dr. added Jacques. Although she stayed with the aftermath of the first surgeries, she kept evolving. We’re surprised by its development to a point. […] This is an example of a fighter. She’s a kid who wants to live.”
So far, Mr. Nadeau’s group has raised $32,000 for the Heart Foundation.