Summer Heide organizes fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House after it helped her family

February 17, 2025, 11:20 am
Ashley Bochek

Mikka with Uncle Luke Lawrence, founder of Teddy Bears Anonymous, with a very special personal bear delivery. Mikka’s middle name is Erin, which is named after Summer’s cousin and Luke’s daughter Erin Lawrence who passed away from stomach cancer the day before her 21st birthday. Erin’s gifted bears from her cancer battle were the beginning of what would turn into Teddy Bears Anonymous. Luke has written a book about the family’s journey with CDH1 called “Erin’s Gift.”

Summer Heide has organized the Small Towns, Big Hearts: Rural Love for Ronald McDonald House Saskatchewan fundraiser in support of the Ronald McDonald House organization in Saskatchewan.
Heide had stomach cancer in her late 20s caused by a genetic mutation that is hereditary in her family. Her daughter, Mikka, was diagnosed with the stomach cancer two years ago.

“CDH1 is a genetic mutation that causes a rare form of cellular diffuse cancer and each of my kids have a 50 per cent chance of inheriting the genetic mutation. We found out Mikka had it when she was 13, so two years ago, and typically they don’t test until 18, but because the type of cancer that it causes seems to affect our family members a lot younger than typical. With some of the symptoms Mikka was having they decided to test her younger,” says Heide.

Hereditary mutation
Heide explains her family’s connection to this genetic mutation and the impact it has had on their lives.

“We have lost my aunt and her daughter. My auntie was 29 when she passed away and then her daughter passed away the day before her 21st birthday from the stomach cancer. So when my cousin got diagnosed with the cancer, her doctor recognized that that is not normal for two people to have died from stomach cancer because stomach cancer is more of an old-person type of cancer to get, so he did the genetic testing and then our entire family had to go through the testing to figure out if it was my grandma or grandpa that had it, and then my dad and all of his siblings had to be tested for it. Then it came down to our generation, so our generation is starting to have kids and they will all have to get tested eventually too.

“The cancer could keep going down each generation. I have three kids and Mikka has it and my other two kids have not been tested yet, but they each have a 50 per cent chance of getting it, and then if they don’t have it, they can’t pass it on. So, Mikka’s kids will have a chance of having the genetic mutation and then the other kids depend on their status as well.”
Mikka had her surgery in January after being diagnosed in November. She is on her journey of treatments and recovery in Saskatoon at the Jim Pattison’s Children Hospital.

Mikka with Pediatric Surgeon Dr. Milbrandt on the day of her discharge eight days post total gastrectomy. Dr Milbrandt plans to present a case study on Mikka’s case to other pediatric surgeons and medical journals being such a unique and rare surgery and a first in Canada.

“Mikka had her surgery on January 14. I had mine 10 years ago prophylactically, a total gastrectomy, and I chose to do it before the cancer had a chance to start because I had two young kids at the time and I didn’t want to take any more chances waiting for it because it is such a hard to detect type of cancer that there is not the greatest screening available for it still. But because we knew Mikka’s risks and the symptoms she was having, she was having annual endoscopies done for surveillance and they happened to find the cancer cells in her scope in November last year.

“Luckily, they found Mikka’s cancer really early, it was still stage one. They removed 18 lymph nodes and all of them were clear so at this time she doesn’t require chemo. The surgery removing her entire stomach was the treatment to get rid of the cancer and thankfully it had only spread up her esophagus slightly, so they removed a little bit of her esophagus as well and took all of the cancer out of her body surgically. So right now, she doesn’t need chemo, but she will have to be monitored just to make sure it doesn’t come back anywhere else.”

Heide says Mikka is relearning eating habits to help her digestion.

“Also, eating and digesting for Mikka now is entirely different. They tell you that your body needs to relearn how to eat now. So, without your stomach a lot of people are confused like ‘how do you eat without a stomach?’ and ‘how do you digest food?’ or ‘do you need a feeding tube?’ She has to eat small frequent meals and she has to chew her food entirely because the job of the stomach is kind of like a holding tank. It breaks down and mulches up the food into mush so it can be digested in the intestine. So now Mikka needs to chew her food and do the job of her stomach in chewing her food really well so that it can be digested by her intestines. I always tell people to just try and chew your food while you’re eating entirely into mush and see. It is hard to actually do when you’re not used to doing that, but she’s in the stage where we are trying to keep things soft and easy to digest things right now. We are not doing nuts or raw vegetables right now because they are harder to digest so she is eating lots of things like cottage cheese, soups, and eggs that are a bit easier.”

Ronald McDonald House

Heide says her family has been lucky enough to stay at the Ronald McDonald House in Saskatoon which is just across the street from the hospital keeping their family together.

“When Mikka went into her surgery we were able to get a room at the Ronald McDonald House and it was just so helpful because it is so much less expensive than a hotel. But besides that, it is right across the street from the hospital so our family was able to just be together and Nick could bring the younger kids every day, they could just walk to the hospital, but just seeing the environment they provide was great. We were so lucky to have a really supportive community who offered us cash gifts and did a go-fund me, but realizing there are lots of people that don’t have that support of an awesome community and how needed that extra support is for those families.

“The Ronald McDonald House provides meals and lunches. There is a snack pantry available to families any time they want, they have fruit and veggies, bagged lunches that you can take to the hospital. I heard from friends who have stayed there that the place was amazing and it is kind of like a secret club, you don’t realize how amazing it is until you experience it. February just happened to be their ‘Families to Families’ Fundraising campaign in Saskatchewan so when I got the email about that, I knew I wanted to do something for them to give back after seeing what an amazing place they provide for families. When you’re dealing with a sick kid, the last thing you want to do is worry about where you are going to stay and how you are going to afford it.”
Heide says the Ronald McDonald House has taken a lot of stress off her family while Mikka has been at the hospital.

At left is a picture of Mikka, age five, comforting Summer, age 28, ten years ago in Calgary foothills hospital after Summer’s total gastrectomy. At right is mom Summer comforting Mikka after Mikka’s total gastrectomy at age 15 in Saskatoon while Mikka is recovering in Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital.

“When I was getting my surgery done, I was in my late 20s and so we stayed in a hotel in Calgary while we were there for about four weeks with two kids at the time, and just living in the hotel, it was expensive and it is hard to eat properly when you are staying in a hotel room, so seeing the difference it provided in staying in a hotel versus having the home environment is just amazing, and everyone at the Ronald McDonald House—the staff and the volunteers are amazing too. We were even able to connect with other families also—one family has a daughter who is going through leukemia treatments who is close to Mikka’s age, and they actually played each other in volleyball, so it was nice to have some connections as well.”

Heide has organized a fundraiser to support the Ronald McDonald House charity in Saskatchewan.

“It is for Saskatchewan Ronald McDonald charities so I don’t know if they have a specific way of doing their allocations, but it would support all of it,” she says. “They also have a family room in Prince Albert as well, but I do know that the house in Regina, they have bought land for it and the construction will begin on that fairly soon. They are in fundraising mode to get that house up and running as well and I imagine lots will go to that one as well.

“I am super excited. Especially for our area where we are so far away from the Jim Pattison Hospital—when you have a kid that has to be at the hospital every day for treatment or even if they only need IV antibiotics for a week, it is so nice to have it available for when you can’t commute every day.”

Fundraiser organized

Heide has organized the Small Town, Big Hearts fundraiser in support of the Ronald McDonald House to help keep the charity running for families in need of a place to stay while their children are receiving treatments in Saskatchewan.
“Just knowing that it is such an affordable option. They only charge families $10/a night, and knowing that cost is so low because of fundraisers and donations that they rely on, I just want to make sure it continues to be offered to people in our province because that is such a helpful thing. You shouldn’t have to worry about where you are going to stay or how you are going to afford being able to let your kid get treatment and not having to leave your kid at the hospital by themselves because you can’t afford to stay somewhere else, so it helps keep families together and I see how important that is.”

Mikka with pediatric surgeon Dr. Milbrandt (in white coat and scrub cap) from Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital, and Dr Bigsby, thoracic surgeon from St. Paul’s hospital where the surgery took place to be done with their robotic system. Mikka’s surgery was so rare, her pediatric surgeon had never performed a total gastrectomy in his 20-pluls years as a surgeon. Summer says the difference in Mikka’s healing/pain level from having robotic surgery vs her open abdominal surgery is absolutely incredible. “We are so thankful this technology has been created in the past 10 years to help make Mikka’s surgery easier to recover from.

Lots of support

Heide says the fundraiser has seen a great amount of support from the community.

“When I registered the name of it, Facebook asks what your fundraising goal is, and I put $5,000 was my goal for it and so far, we have had an incredible response. It is so nice to see how many people want to support it and take part in the fundraiser. We have had amazing donations. Some people who have donated have also experienced what it was like to stay at the Ronald McDonald House and other people are just happy to help such a great organization.

“I love our community. Everybody is always so supportive and even if they can’t do something monetary, everybody is always cheering everything on. I love that we live in such a giving community. It is really heartwarming and nice to see.”
Heide says there are a variety of items up for auction for the fundraiser.
“There is a $500 Horizon build-your-own barbecue pack donated by Levi Jamieson Farms, The World-Spectator is donating $500 worth of advertising, there is some Hillberg & Berk jewelry, there is a $200 gift travel voucher for a Disney trip through a local Disney planner, lots of handmade items, and then there is homemade buns—those always seem to be popular in the local fundraisers. Jen O’Rourke from Bear and Roo donated a tremendous amount of items she had made for kids because she kind of transitioning to women’s stuff. So, there is a whole bunch of handmade items that are made right here in Moosomin. She has quite the little business. She donated about 45 pieces of kids clothing to be auctioned off, so that is incredible.”

A picture of Mikka while in surgery with the robotic system in place. Dr. Bigsby control the arms robotically off to the side of the room. The robotic surgery allows a much less invasive surgery to help minimize pain and speed up the healing process. This cancer is so hard to detect that it was not seen on her cat scan or PET Scan and even to the surgeons upon surgical removal and seeing the stomach and examining it, it appeared to be entirely healthy and nothing was suspicious looking. But pathology after surgery revealed 10 spots of cancer lurking in her stomach.

Importance of fundraiser

Heide says she organized the fundraiser to help others who might find themselves needing to travel to the cities for medical care.
“It is really important to me because it is such a rare type of cancer, and even the surgery in itself is super rare. So many surgeons have never done a total gastrectomy and for it to be also in a pediatric patient is ultra-super rare. Mikka’s surgeon actually called me yesterday and told me he was doing some digging and he found out—because Mikka’s surgery was robotic, which is different than laparoscopic even which is kind of cool—so the robotic system is at the St. Paul’s Hospital and they had some red tape to get through to get Mikka to have her surgery there because typically all the pediatric surgeries are done at the Jim Pattison Hospital.

“But they did hers at the St. Paul’s to use this robotic surgery and she was the first pediatric patient in Canada to have a major surgery done by the robotic machine, so it is pretty cool, and she was the first pediatric patient to have a total gastrectomy in Saskatchewan they said. It is just super, super rare, and I think it is just interesting to share and connect with other people in the world who have also had total gastrectomies and help them not feel so alone because it is such a rare thing. Often their doctors have never treated a patient who has had a total gastrectomy, so it is like they don’t even know what to do with you sometimes, so it has been really nice to connect with people from all over the place.

“As far as wanting to give back to the Ronald McDonald House, I know there are so many people out there that don’t live in a community like Moosomin-Rocanville area who might not have the same support that we had to help us so much financially for Mikka’s treatments. If we did have to stay in a hotel, we would have been able to because of people’s generosity in our area, but knowing there are so many people in our province who probably don’t have that luxury, I just want to do something to give back to the Ronald McDonald House so that those families who might now have that same backing always have that option of staying at the Ronald McDonald House so they don’t have to worry about that. When their kids are sick, that is all they should have to worry about.
“Hearing your kid has cancer is every parents’ worse nightmare, so to have to worry also about finances after that seems unfair, so I am really happy to give back to the Ronald McDonald House for that.”

To visit the online auction click here