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G-Tube button (photo courtesy of Jennifer Mickaniuk)
Act of kindness

Nurse and quilter team up to make G-Tube buttons for toddler

Jan 28, 2020 | 2:08 PM

A small act of kindness from two Beaverlodge women have made a big impact on a family in the Horse Lake First Nation.

Beaverlodge based home care nurse, Jennifer Mickanuik, has been caring for three-year old Arizona for the past two years. Arizona has a rare congenial disorder, called CHARGE syndrome, which can cause extensive medical and physical difficulties, ranging from life-threatening birth defects, to vision loss, to problems breathing and swallowing.

Mickanuik says due to her condition, Arizona has trouble gaining weight, and had a G-Tube (gastrostomy tube) placed in her stomach, to ensure she gets the nutrition she needs.

However, one day, while doing a routine visit, Mickanuik found that the area around the G-Tube was becoming irritated and raw from friction. She discovered that a flannel button, meant to protect the area, had been lost.

She says she called the Stollery Children’s Hospital, who told her the family needs to buy their own replacements. Mickanuik checked online, and found they were really expensive.

She then decided to call her childhood friend, Erin Kyle, the owner of Around the Block quilting in Beaverlodge, to find out if the buttons would be easy to make.

Mickanuik says Kyle told her they wouldn’t be that difficult, and offered her help.

“She made 20 in, like, and evening. She sent me pictures of them, and I told her Arizona is a girly-girl, she likes pink and soft things, and I think the first one Erin showed me was the Strawberry Shortcake one, and it was very overwhelming.”

Kyle says she found the instructions on how to make them online, and made a them in variety of patterns, including butterflies, bubbles, Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Mickanuik says she brought some during her next visit to the family. While doing an assessment of Arizona, she took out 10 of the G-Tube buttons, and put one on. She says Trina, Arizona’s mother, was stunned, and asked if they were for them.

“And I said yeah, and she was just speechless, it was just an amazing moment, it was undescribable how that made me feel in that moment.”

She says Trina was so moved and is so excited to have the G-Tube buttons, and is so grateful to the kind gesture by the pair from Beaverlodge.

Kyle, meanwhile, says she was more than happy to be involved in this project.

“Where you’re in a situation where you come home and you need stuff that seems so simple to other people, but is so life changing for them, I just feel like whatever I can do to help them, I will do that.”

Kyle says she’s now being approached by people asking for their own custom G-Tube buttons.

“Once it was posted out on Facebook and social media, I had a lot of other people contacting me asking if I could make them for other children, as well as now adults are coming forward asking if I could make them as well. So I just feel like if I can help in anyway, I would love to do that.”

Mickanuik adds that it’s incredible how these little acts of kindness, that takes very little effort or time, can make a huge difference on a family in need.

She says that she didn’t do this for fame, but to tell this “beautiful story”, and show how someone’s small act can make such a big impact in someone’s life.