Help Wayne's daughters support him during open-heart surgery

Boozhoo, Wachyie,

Matawa First Nations Management is fundraising on behalf of our dear friend and colleague Wayne Slipperjack, who is on his way to Toronto for emergency open-heart surgery this week. His daughters, Corinne, Courtney and Monica, need financial assistance to travel from Eabametoong First Nation to Toronto so they can be there to support their dad while he recovers from the procedure.

Wayne is the General Manager of RapidLynx Telecommunications here at Matawa, helping to bring First Nations-owned and operated broadband internet to Matawa communities. He’s on dialysis and doing the tests needed to get on the kidney transplant list. As part of that evaluation, Wayne recently did a stress test which found an abnormality. It turns out he has 95% blockage in his main artery, requiring emergency open-heart surgery in Toronto.

The funds raised will go to Wayne’s daughters to be used for flights, accommodation and transportation while they’re in Toronto for at least a week. It’s a scary and uncertain time for Wayne and his family. These funds will help to ease the financial burden so Wayne and his family can focus on Wayne’s recovery.

Below is a post from Wayne:

It’s not often I make this kind of post.

Couple weeks ago, my nephrologist (kidney doctor) did his rounds, and I was on his list. He informed me of an abnormality with a stress test I did a couple weeks before and ordered a coronary angiogram/angioplasty to be done. I did this on Monday April 7 and there was a slight blockage, they’d put a stent. Anyway, they went into my heart through an artery in my groin area and found that they couldn’t put a stent because of 3 blockages and very critical. I was then booked for an echocardiogram that afternoon and to see a heart surgeon who’s visiting from Toronto. I didn’t get to see him until this afternoon, and he got straight to the point. It was a lot more serious than I thought. Some of you may have heard Joe Waswa announcing on the radio at 6pm. There is a 95% blockage in the main artery that feeds the heart the blood. Major concern for the doctor. His recommendation was that I need open heart surgery to get this corrected and the sooner the better. He gave what the success rate is for this, and it can be done this week as soon as he gets back to Toronto. He’ll work on getting arranged and me to fly down on a medivac to Toronto. When I heard this, the first person to come to mind was Joe, called him and had doctor explain what’s going on with me. I told Joe to go see my daughters and to tell them the seriousness of my health. I then called my uncle and told him and to go to see Courtney and Monica with Joe making his way there.

How I feel? Shocked on how serious this is and told doc the sooner we get this done the better. I should say that I’ve been doing tests for a kidney transplant and this was found, deal with this so that they can get on the active list sometime in the future.

My daughters are looking for donations to come and be with me during the surgery. Any donation will help them.

With that, thank you

An update from Wayne following his first post:

Although I’m facing the seriousness of my health, I’m in good spirits and needed some laughter. I do expect to have my downs because like I said, this is very serious. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and look after my babies Corrine, Courtney and Monica and of course my little babies, my grandchildren all 7 of them this is heartbreaking for them.