February is heart month, and six-year-old Danika Toews from Winkler has been through a lot because of her tiny heart.

Despite that all, the energetic little girl's mom, Karen says Danika loves life. She says Danika is living the "typical kid life," enjoying things like skating and ballet.

Danika is in grade one at J.R. Walkof School in Winkler. Her mom says her favourite thing to do at school is to socialize with her many friends. (photo submitted)Danika was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in utero, but after she was born it was realized the defect was a bit different than initially thought. From there, Karen says they hit the road running and many tests were done to find out about Danika's anatomy and how it works and to how best to support her. Then at nine months old, the Toews family headed off to Edmonton where Danika had open-heart surgery. Karen says the doctors did the best they could surgically to correct her defect. "It was slightly disappointing because they couldn't do a complete correction that a lot of kids do have, but we've learned to deal with that."

Karen says they were told that without medical intervention Danika could live until about 3 years of age. With medical intervention because of her collaterals being very tiny, and because the lower lobes of her lungs are dependent on them, after surgery they hoped for 5 years. The surgery she had in Edmonton at 9 months old is called an unifocalization and has only been practiced since 1996. It is only now that some of these babies are reaching late teens, noted Karen.

"Danika's case is difficult to manage as she can not be completely surgically corrected. Her VSD remains open and needs to stay open as she has pulmonary hypertension, and can ultimately lead to heart failure."

Numerous other trips to Edmonton would follow for the Toews' family after Danika's surgery. She has had six heart catheters to try to stretch her arteries and vessels. "They try to stint them open because some of them were occluding, so we've done lots of travel to Edmonton and back again."

Karen Toews with The Eagle morning show host Ronny Guenther.

Through the journey, Karen says the Toews family decided to live life with joy. She says when you're faced with not knowing how long you have with your child, you make the choice to make today count. "When you're faced with the adversity of being called at night to come to the hospital because your child's not doing so well, it really does change how you wake up the next morning. It changes how you see each day."

Karen says every day they make the choice consciously to enjoy life and make each day count. "We try to make the most of our situation, and milestones are celebrated on every level. We travel when Danika is well, we have learned to no longer wait until summer or next year, or until you have lost 10 pounds or gained a promotion. We relish on a beautiful day at the beach or an evening at home. We eat loads of ice cream, buy balloons for every occasion."

In terms of the medical side of things, Karen highlighted the fact that surgical heart patients require a lot of blood, and therefore she encourages people to donate if possible. She notes blood products are used for so many different things, and blood is always on standby because you might need a blood transfusion at any time when a procedure is being done. "An open-heart surgery you actually have the full volume of your entire body's blood because it has to run through the bypass machine."

Karen notes, so far, Danika has required more than 500 units of blood.