A grandmother is on a mission to bring awareness to the community of Okotoks and the world.

After welcoming her grandson Jensen to the world, Carol Donockley wants people to know how important it is to consider being a donor as her grandson would not be here without his donor lung artery.

Carol with her grandson Jensen. Photo Courtesy: Carol Donockley

Jensen, whose family lives in Okotoks, was born with truncus arteriosus, a rare type of heart disease.

When operating on the new born to alter the truncus, Jensen's heart stopped, but with his donor lung artery, the doctors help and a miracle, his heart beat on.

Donockley says though they are thankful, they can only feel bad for another family.

"When they did an operation to wire his sternum, basically Jensen's heart had stopped, in fact he had died but they managed to bring him back. We now have this lovely little baby, however, he's only alive because somebody else lost their baby and had the courage at a terrible, terrible time to allow our baby to live because they were on the donor register and Jensen now has a donor lung artery."

Donockley says she is now trying to give back to everyone that has helped their family as well as spread the message "being different is okay".

"I wanted to do a project to say thank you to the donor family and I also wanted to do something to highlight the fact that children don't have to be the same as other children, Jensen won't be the same, does it matter? No, thank God he's got his scar."

Donockley is writing a children's story about how all children should embrace being different as her grandson, with his survivor scars, will be for the rest of his life.

"The story is called Jelly Bean Little and the Rice Pudding Thieves and it's about a little boy who's born all folded up like a constantina and when his father washes him over the washing line to fold, he's the length of two buses. So basically it's about a giant, but I don't use that word. And it's about the fact that Jelly Bean is different, and it's okay to be different because we don't all have to be the same."

The grandmother encourages people to read this story to their children to help them embrace their uniqueness.

She is also asking people to send in their illustrations to her Facebook page as the books characters aren't yet finished.

With the Jensen and Jelly Bean project Donockley hopes to one day publish the book and fund the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton where her grandson was operated on, as well as the Freeman Newcastle hospital which was where Jensen would have been born in if he was visiting his grandparents in England.

To read Jensen and Jelly Bean Little's story and to support Carol and her cause visit www.caroldonockley.com.

Facebook page: Jelly Bean and Friends Stories

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