"The impact of donations isn’t virtual or abstract. When you’re sick, you see it firsthand. Small things can make a huge difference in situations this extreme." — Karl, Édouard’s father
At 17, life shouldn’t come to a stop
A 17-year-old should be staying up too late, spending time with friends, running to catch the bus, coming home after curfew, and celebrating victories with their volleyball team.
But at 17, Édouard found himself connected to a mechanical heart 24 hours a day.
This machine kept him alive. While he slept, its batteries charged beside him. If the cord came loose, his heart would stop beating.
Everything changed in a few days
After the January 2024 holidays, Édouard begins feeling unusually tired. His parents assume it is typical teenage fatigue, made worse by attending a new school and more demanding volleyball training.
He has a lingering cough, but nothing seems alarming. Then, a few days later, everything changes.
Édouard coughs up blood. His mother rushes him to the emergency department at their regional hospital. Within fifteen minutes, his condition deteriorates: his blood pressure drops, he goes into respiratory distress, and his heart begins racing.
As soon as doctors call CHU Sainte-Justine, a race against time begins. Medication stabilizes his condition. An ultrasound reveals abnormally thick heart walls.
Doctors finally find the cause. It’s not a virus, but rather a defective gene. It’s the same gene that had changed his father’s life seven years earlier when he underwent a heart transplant.
Hoping for a heart
When you’re seventeen, you don’t think about dying. You don’t think about slowing down. But Édouard and his family are forced to make an impossible choice when medication could no longer stabilize him.
Three weeks later, he is connected to a mechanical heart that now beats for him every second of every day.
The following months are difficult, with days filled with restrictions, irritations, adjustments, and an exhausting wait for a new heart.
During the summer of 2025, life slowly begins to return. Édouard resumes seeing friends, coaching a team, and living a somewhat normal life.
Then, in June, hope arrives when they learn a heart is available. Unfortunately, it turns out to be incompatible. Their disappointment is crushing.
Still, Édouard refuses to give up. Supported by his father’s experience and his family’s strength, he keeps moving forward. Together, they tranform waiting into hope.
Hope becomes reality
Then, on November 30, 2025, everything changes once again.
Édouard receives his new heart. The wait is over. As he recovers, he is already looking ahead to the future: the volleyball court, the next Téléthon, and everything that comes next.
"Watching my child suffer is a hundred times worse than having gone through it myself. I would relive my own ordeal tomorrow morning rather than watch him go through it." — Karl, Édouard’s father
Illness has no place in a child’s life.
– Karl, Julie and Maxime (18)
To get through each day with hope
Discover the story of Édouard, a young athlete who shines by his courage.
