A Kamloops teen will be dropping by Royal Inland Hospital this afternoon to give thanks for a gift she received at four years old — a new heart.
Abby Farnsworth is one of 100 B.C. Transplant volunteers who will be delivering 94 boxes of popcorn to health-care teams in 27 hospitals across B.C. and the Yukon until Dec. 7. It’s all part of Operation Popcorn, a holiday initiative now in its 27th year.
Transplant recipients in BC say thanks to the health professionals
— BC Transplant (@BC_Transplant) December 3, 2018
who make organ donation and transplant possible. https://t.co/VeeO7gunZh
Our teams kicked off day 1 of #OperationPopcorn today with deliveries to Ridge Meadows and Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospitals. pic.twitter.com/stdYjPAxzP
Farnsworth was born with a congenital heart disease. Since only half her heart was functioning, she had to undergo three open-heart surgeries before her fifth birthday.
“She was quite sick,” recalls her dad, Kent. “We went to emergency five or six times. Every time we went to the ER, she was admitted to the hospital for three to five days.
Kent remembers how the smallest of tasks would tucker his daughter out.
Abby Farnsworth (front, left) delivers the goods on Dec. 4 to the staff at Royal Inland Hospital. (via Contributed)She’d sit down and do some colouring, do 10 strokes with a crayon and just say, ‘I’m too tired.’ … Just climbing the couch, she was winded and was getting pretty blue.”
The Farnsworths had to travel to Toronto to wait for a heart transplant. At the time, B.C. Children's Hospital in Vancouver did not perform the procedure on children. The good news phone call came four months after they arrived.
“It was a relief that it was coming,” says Kent. “But it’s bittersweet because somebody else has lost their child. That goes through your mind as well.”
Today, the NorKam student is very active. She’s enrolled in numerous dance classes, and at the time of her interview with KamloopsMatters, had just wrapped up a day of skiing.
“I find that I’m very fortunate in this situation, that I can live life like a normal person,” she says.
2018 is a special year for organ donation in B.C. — it marks 50 years since the first-ever transplant in the province.
This will be Farnsworth's fifth time as an Operation Popcorn volunteer.
"We're just saying thank you, for everything they (the doctors and caregivers) had to go through to help us."
