Meet Sunny

Due to a genetic mutation, Sunny was diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy at the age of 18.

Sunny was born in Surrey, British Columbia, a perfectly healthy happy boy who enjoyed pewee football. Due to a genetic mutation, Sunny was diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy at the age of 18; shortly after beginning his term at Simon Fraser University in 2003.

Dilated Cardiomyopathy is a disease where the heart muscle is greatly enlarged and completely loses efficiency in pumping blood throughout the body; this affects the functioning of the lungs, kidneys, liver and rest of the body in general. Sunny has had to defer his studies, personal goals and projects, due to being sidelined by severe and unpredictable congested Heart failure. As the disease progressed, symptoms and side effects worsened along with his quality of life. St. Paul’s Hospital of Vancouver, BC provided its best care and prolonged Sunny’s life as much as possible. Finally in 2013, Sunny was given an LVAD, which is an artificial heart pump to bridge the gap between complete heart failure and need/availability for a new organ.

In July 2014, Sunny received the call he had been waiting for almost 12 years. Sunny underwent a successful heart transplant from a matching donor giving him a second chance at life. It took many years, many near death experiences and teams of medical professionals and family care to get to this point. If it weren’t for the kind soul who signed up to be an organ donor, who knows where Sunny would be today. Sunny wants to put all of his positive energy into the Jivana organization to give something back in a meaningful way and appreciate his good health and functioning body by making good use of it to honour his donor – by improving his health, his mind, his relationships, get married, and travel the world.

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