65 Red Roses: Blogger Eva Markvoort Shared Life with Cystic Fibrosis

Eva Markvoort, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, reached over a million people through her blog, 65 Red Roses. Though she recently passed away, her legacy lives on.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on April 27 2010

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Eva Markvoort, a beautiful, vivacious 25-year-old woman with dyed ruby-red hair from Vancouver, wrote a popular blog by the name of 65 Red Roses. Contrary to what you might think, the blog wasn’t about gardening: the title was her childhood mispronounciation of the disease she suffered from throughout her life, cystic fibrosis.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary disease caused by a gene mutation, and can cause extreme difficulty breathing, sinus infections, and many other painful side effects. It affects about one in every 2,000 people. Although CF can often be managed by medications and medical treatments, most people who suffer from the disease live in frequent discomfort, and often die in their 20s or 30s.

Although Eva spent much of her life in the hospital, kept away from other patients because of the risk of infection, she was a constant presence in the lives of friends and strangers alike through her blog. She began posting on her blog in 2006, and began connecting with CF patients around the world through her writing. Soon, her blog drew an even larger audience, and she used it as a platform to show the world what it was like living with CF. It’s now reached over a million readers.

Despite the pain the disease caused her, Eva felt constantly blessed. She loved her family, her friends, and the readers who embraced her. Nearly every day, she’d post messages sharing her happiness for all the ordinary moments of life that so many of us take for granted, as well as her fear and frustration in coping with her disease.

In 2007, a group of filmmakers took an interest in Eva’s blog, and created a documentary movie of her life, also called 65 Red Roses, in which Eva allowed to see the harsh realities of CF like frequent coughing, vomiting, and month-long hospital stays. The film had a happy ending: Eva, who had been progressively sicker over the course of the shoot, got the double lung transplant she had been waiting for. She would be able to breathe again.

Sadly, things eventually took a turn for the worse, and her body began to reject the new lungs. In January, Eva uploaded a YouTube video to her blog: “I have some news today. It’s kinda tough to hear, but I can say it with a smile,” she said. “My life is ending.”

But Eva had none of the self-pity that you would expect from someone who’d been handed a death sentence at such a young age. “I think I’m very lucky, because I’ve loved more than you could possibly think, could possibly imagine,” she said. “So I’m celebrating that: celebrating my life.”

Eva passed away on March 27th, but before her death, she was honored with the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s prestigious Doug Summerhayes Award for her work raising awareness of the disease through her blog and documentary. She was also awarded a college diploma from the University of Victoria, which she had fallen a few credits short of graduating because of her constant illnesses. But neither of these honors meant as much to her as her “wall of love”: the thousands of letters, pictures, and gifts she received from her supporters around the planet, many of whom suffered from CF themselves. In this video, Eva gives a tour of her wall, and the many wonderful notes of support she’s received.

Even though Eva’s life has ended, her legacy will remain. As she said in her video, “this is the end of my life, but it’s not the end of my love.”

To learn more about cystic fibrosis or make a donation to find a cure, visit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Health and Wellbeing, Heroes,

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