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Soyka Family Flight Story
My name is Richard Soyka. I am just writing to thank the entire team at Give a Mile and give an update about my wife, Li Gong, and our baby.
Last summer, after years of trying, my wife and I were finally able to conceive after undergoing IVF here in Vancouver. In fact, my wife was carrying twins!
Unfortunately, our initial joy turned to great concern when we found out that the twins were monochorionic diamniotic, and one of them was far behind in development. He could pass away in utero at any time and threaten the continued viability of his brother.
In order to save the life of the one twin, we made the very difficult decision to undergo a surgical procedure at BC Women's Hospital here in Vancouver. However, due to some complications, this proved unsuccessful and actually put the more developed fetus at further risk. We had to make a decision rather quickly if we wanted to save one of our twins. Our doctor at BC Women's, Dr Gagnon, then suggested we try a different procedure in Toronto.
After some panic as to how we were going to book and pay for a flight across Canada on such short notice, the hospital's acting social worker found your site, giveamile.org, and contacted you right away. She received an immediate response asking for the details of our situation. Within 15 minutes of that initial conversation, I was on the phone with Stacey booking our flight for Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020!
We arrived in Toronto on Nov. 26, 2020. Thanks to the work of everyone in your organization, the flight and ground crews for Air Canada knew of our situation and treated us accordingly, both here in Vancouver and after arrival in Toronto.
After undergoing a successful procedure, I emailed Stacey on Saturday morning to arrange our return flight. Again, within an hour of my email, she had called me and set up our return flight for the next day, Sunday, Nov. 29, 2020.
All three of us -- myself, my wife Li, our 3-week-old son Theo -- cannot express how grateful we are for how prompt and helpful your entire organization was. Your compassion, skill and professionalism turned what could have been an anxiety-inducing trip across the country into a joyous beginning for our new family! Without your kindness and action, we could not have given our son the start in life that he deserves!
Yours sincerely,
Richard Soyka
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