For Moncton’s Norma Melason, multiple complications with her pace maker and endocarditis - an infection of the inner lining of the heart chamber and valves - would see her in Saint John to be a first for the New Brusnwick Heart Centre.

“Two valves were completely destroyed,” say Norma. That’s when Dr. Pozeg stepped in. “He reconstructed the valves,” Norma explains. “As an artist would have done.” Surviving the surgery, Norma later slipped into a coma. After 62 days in a coma, “When I woke up, I was expecting Christmas,” says Norma. Instead, a different kind of gift.

What started as a ruptured bowel and an irregular heartbeat turned into a dire situation for Glenn Foster. “The hospital moved mountains for me,” says, Glenn. "When I was in cardiac rehab I saw new machines coming in and was told that a donor had helped purchase them.

My wife and I decided then to make a donation, and have since become monthly donors. We also made arrangements in our will to leave a gift. We wanted to direct our gift to the amazing people and teams that brought me back from the edge and saved my life."

Dr. McGrath began his training in New Brunswick and specialized in cardiovascular medicine in Edmonton where he learned a new procedure to plug a leaky heart. Fast forward to his return home and he was able to try it.

“The patient had a valve that was functioning well, but he had an area beside the valve that blood was passing through and that was giving him symptoms of heart failure, really making his quality of life quite miserable.”, says Dr. McGrath. “We now have the ability to actually go in through a vein in the leg and up to his heart and plug the hole that way. That means he goes home later that day. He’s got a tiny scar on his leg from a small puncture and beyond that he’s back to doing what he was doing before.”