Tribute to Eva Markvoort

As many in the CF community know, we lost a great CF champion this past week. Eva Markvoort died this past weekend of CF-related complications at the age of 25. Eva has been a courageous and uplifting CF patient who demonstrated hope and love in the way that she strove to raise awareness of Cystic Fibrosis in hopes of finding a cure and to help raise awareness and support for organ donation.

Eva was the subject of the documentary 65_RedRoses, which is an award-winning documentary. This documentary has been featured at HotDocs in Toronto and the Vancouver Film Festival. The documentary has been broadcast on CBC as well. This documentary will be broadcast again this Friday April 2 at 4am and 8pm. For more details, see this site: http://www.65redroses.com/

The documentary chronicles Eva's deteriorating health condition from Cystic Fibrosis and her wait for a new set of lungs. The documentary highlights the difficulties of cystic fibrosis, the challenges of organ transplant and the hope for new life that comes when organs become available - donations made available by the loss of another's life. The documentary ends on a positive note, showing Eva participating in a Dragon Boat race, seeing life in front of her that had not been possible before her double lung transplant.

Two years after her transplant, which occurred in late 2007, Eva's health began to deteriorate again. This time, her body was rejecting the new lungs that had prolonged her life. Eva held on, blogging about her deteriorating health, her thoughts, her fears, her loves and her dreams.

This past Saturday March 27, at 9:30am, Eva died. This short post announced it to those that were following her struggles on her blog, 65redroses.livejournal.com:
"Our beautiful girl died this morning at 9:30. She is at peace. Will write more later."

Eva's legacy will be a strong one. Eva has been a lightning rod of activism and awareness for a disease that science has made great strides against in the last 40 years. There is still much to do to beat this disease, but Eva, I thank you for all that you have done to combat this disease and to provide hope to the many that still suffer from this terrible disease.

To honour Eva's life, please consider making a difference:

1. Sign your organ donor card.
2. Share Eva's story - 65_redroses trailer
3. Celebrate Eva's life: Join the facebook group

Thank you Eva. You are greatly missed.

Todd