A phone call changed Tyler Franz's life.

The Winkler resident suffers from a severe case of Crohn's Disease; he notes some physicians have called it the worst case in Canada.

Between the powerful medication and debilitating pain, Franz enjoys a few hours out of bed each day. On a good day he eats four bowls of oatmeal. Because of the health issues neither he or his wife Jenny are able to work outside of the home.

"It's frustrating," Franz says. "It's just been hitting my hope... you start to feel like you're in the middle of the ocean on your own waiting for a ship to come by."

It was in the midst of a particularly difficult day when the phone rang.

At first Franz says he didn't want to answer the phone. "I was so hopeless... so broken."

They had also recently heard about a new Crohn's treatment that was offered in the U.S "it was one last crack at it," he says. However, the treatment costs $10,000 well beyond anything they could afford.

It was that day Franz learned they were the recipients of the 2018 Big Rigs Big Hearts fundraiser. Last year the event raised over $20,000, split between two recipients.

"Just miraculously, and by extreme grace and compassion we were chosen... That was the moment we felt we're going to be ok," Franz says.

It's that phone call that picks him up when life gets hard. "It just hit me... there's a lot of people that love us... that just want to see us live again and see me healthy and restored."

He says it's the community that saved his life, "there's a desire to fight and live again... the battle is long and hard, when my days are bad and my nights are bad my hope takes a really good hit... that phone call keeps me going."

Along with Franz STARS Air Ambulance will be receiving funds this year at Big Rigs Big Hearts July 21. The event takes place at the Southland Mall in Winkler.

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