STANDARD, Alta. – It would be easy for people to forgive Devyn Millette if she acted depressed.
At 11 years old, she has already spent more time in hospitals than most people, has had four heart operations and is anticipating a fifth, must inject herself three times each day and could bleed to death if she accidentally falls or is hit too hard.
Yet Devyn’s demeanor is anything but depressed. She appeared lively and chatty at a 4-H achievement day in Standard, while pledging the sale proceeds from one of her lambs to the Alberta Children’s Hospital, to which she says she owes so much.
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She sold the 106 pound lamb for $3.20 per lb. to Pure Country Meats of Strathmore, Alta. There were no tears when it came time to turn over the animal.
“I went through that last year. It went to someone for a pet. I was jealous because they got it,” she said.
Devyn’s young life has been one of perserverence.
When she and her twin brother, Johnathon, were born 11 years ago, they were premature by three months, with the medical concerns that normally come with premature births.
Her brother weighed 2.5 lb. Devyn weighed 1.15 lb.
Since then, Johnathan has grown up relatively trouble free, but Devyn has a chart full of medical problems. She has spent months at the hospital in Calgary fighting problems that would leave many adults exhausted.
She and her brother were born in the high risk maternity unit at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital on Jan. 4, 1996, to parents Pam and Mike Millette.
The babies were frail and needed respirators to help them breathe. Their hands were the size of thimbles.
According to Pam, doctors did not expect them to survive the night.
But about three months later they were taken home to the family farm near Rockyford, Alta., on March 15. When they left the hospital, Johnathan weighed slightly more than five lb. and Devyn was slightly less.
Devyn underwent her first heart surgery when she was eight days old. It was to be the first of four heart surgeries she would have by the time she reached four years old. She is expecting to have another heart operation soon to have two valves replaced.
At age five, Devyn developed juvenile diabetes and injects herself with insulin and tests her blood sugar three times a day.
“I hate them (the injections),” she said.
Devyn has also contracted a virus type of asthma and recently developed idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as ITP, an autoimmune disease in which the blood does not properly clot. She is now in remission, but when the disease flares up, large blue-black bruises appear around her insulin injection sites. Any accident could have serious consequences.
“If I get hit, I could bleed to death,” Devyn said, complaining with a grimace that it keeps her from playing contact sports.
As well, she finds it difficult to shake colds because of her asthma.
To this day, Devyn has to be admitted to hospital as often as three times a month and many doctors and nurses know her on sight.
“There are very few who don’t know me,” she said.
Devyn dreams of becoming a marine biologist and is saving her 4-H money for university. Still, she wants proceeds from her lamb to go toward supplies or research at the hospital.
“Maybe they’ll figure out how to get rid of diabetes,” she said.
