Heart recipient shows gratitude for gift of life
“It was very healing — it helped me a lot.”
On Tuesday, Tanner Fitzpatrick sits between Bruce and Susan McKenzie, smiling shyly as a photographer takes their picture. His above comment is in answer to finally meeting the couple late last year, people he didn’t know but with whom he shares a powerful connection.
“He’s not much of a talker,” his mom, Trudy Fitzpatrick, warned me a few minutes earlier, so it’s not surprising that the 18-yearold answers questions in a voice barely above a whisper.
Tanner’s mere presence on the ice at Winsport’s Markin MacPhail Arena, though, speaks volumes. In his first appearance as a goalie at the fifth annual Marit Cup fundraising hockey game, which pits students against staff at Calgary Christian School, the young man from Burin, N.L., is the human embodiment of the life-saving benefits of organ transplantation.
The heart beating in his chest once beat in Marit McKenzie’s. Her tragic death at age 18 in early 2013 made it possible for the young man to not only survive, but thrive. “We’re on pretty much of a high right now,” says Trudy Fitzpatrick as she watches from the stands. “Tanner found out Merit was his donor a couple of years ago and decided he wanted to come here this year.”
For the Fitzpatricks, helping support the fundraiser in the name of Tanner’s donor is a happy chapter in a roller-coaster story that began in the spring of 2012.
“He was a healthy child and then, at age 12, all of a sudden he was sick,” says Trudy.
He was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a condition that can lead to heart failure.
In the fall of 2012, he went to Toronto’s SickKids Hospital for transplantation assessment; after the medical team there determined he wasn’t ready to be put on the heart transplant list, Tanner went back home where his health rapidly deteriorated.
Then, after being OK’d for transplantation just after Christmas of that year, on Jan. 29, 2013, he got the call there was a heart for him.
“We didn’t expect it to happen so fast,” says his dad, Phil Fitzpatrick. “It was such a relief.”
His family’s happiness was in direct contrast to the McKenzie family’s grief.
“We always said, ‘what did we do to deserve such an amazing child,’ ” Susan McKenzie says as she holds back tears. “She was an old soul,” says her dad, Bruce McKenzie.
Marit McKenzie was also wise beyond her years. The year before her death, the Grade 12 student at Calgary Christian School chose organ donation as her community project. Her research led her to the good work of the David Foster Foundation, the 30-year-old charity founded by the renowned music producer. It offers financial help to families with a child undergoing organ transplants.
“She told me, ‘Mom, I want to sign a donor card,’ ” says Susan. “I thought I should sign one, too. I’d never thought of it before.”
A year later, the artistic 18-year-old died of a pulmonary embolism. Thanks to her signing that donor card, Merit gave two people the gift of sight, one tendons and bones for reconstructive surgery, another her kidney and pancreas, and one, Tanner Fitzpatrick, her heart.
Mark Klassen, in the stands cheering on the players, is the recipient of McKenzie’s kidney and pancreas.
“Being able to travel again, have energy again, work full time,” says the 45-year-old, “has been such a life changing experience.”
Along with raising tens of thousands of dollars for the David Foster Foundation, the annual Marit Cup also helps raise awareness of the importance of organ donation, says Allison Jones. “It’s homegrown events like this that really get the word out,” says Jones, daughter of David Foster who also sits on its board. “We’re so overjoyed they let us be a part of this.”
While he is a young man of few words, Tanner Fitzpatrick is well aware that just being on the ice speaks much louder than words.
“I thought it would be a great story,” he says softly, “to help promote organ donation.”