Do you know about 65_redroses?

If you don't know the name Eva Markvoort you should.

She was a beautiful young woman with hair of red and eyes that told a million stories. She lost her life to cystic fibrosis March 27th, 2010 just a few days shy of her 26th birthday.

Cystic Fibrosis (also known as CF) is a common hereditary disease which affects the entire body, causing progressive disability and often early death. Most often you will see patients who have this with oxygen masks on struggling to breathe from a thick buildup of mucus in their lungs.

Eva is known as 65_RedRoses in the cyber world. She communicated with many people from her hospital room and opened so many people's eyes to the struggle of dealing with CF. Thanks to her there is more awareness about CF; inspiration for those with it and those without. Before she passed, Eva won the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Doug Summerhayes award for her contribution to education about CF. More people are signing up to donate organs that are so needed by people suffering and you should too.



There's so much I could type here about this extraordinary girl but I invite you to learn more by clicking on the links below:

Eva's online journal

Official website for Eva's documentary

Watch Eva's documentary online here

Taken from one of Eva's last journal entries:





"making the effort this evening to sit up in a chair
good to change positions
stretch different muscles
sending air to different pockets
mum asked what i miss?

i miss walking in and out of buildings
the feeling of air pressure change when you enter or exit a building
i miss getting in and out of cars
how your view changes when you sit at a different height
change really
i miss change
now, it is all the same
seven weeks....
there are no transitions
i miss transitions
from one place to another
which is strange really
because now i hate change
i can't stand change and yet i miss the transitions

i hold onto who ever is near
since when am i clingy?
i grasp onto
annie in the morning
jackie and robin in the afternoon
dad in the evening
maman all the time
episodes of projectile vomiting
hours of gasping for breath
waves of nausea lulling out into
hours of sleepiness once the meds have hit
leaving me daydreaming about stepping out of this room
just getting up
free of tubes and plugs
and walking out the door
pushing open doorways
skipping down the street
breathing free
free"


Eva is finally free of tubes.

She has taught me what's bad isn't that bad. I can breathe and I have always taken that for granted. She concentrated on every breath she took - do we even notice a breath of life giving oxygen we take?

She made lemonade out of lemons and I think we all could learn from her.