‘It melts your heart’: B.C. boy prepares to treat-or-treat for 1st time since missing Halloween for heart surgery

Adam meets a boy preparing to trick or treat for the first time since missing Halloween for heart surgery.

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. — If you ask Ian Ytsma about his favourite thing, the five-year-old will tell you all about Star Wars.

“So, Luke Skywalker tried to kill Darth Vader,” Ian begins while climbing a fallen tree in the park.

If you ask his mom, Natalia Ytsma, about her most difficult days, she’ll tell you about when Ian endured his first heart surgery at two weeks old and his second at six weeks.

“I was gutted,” Natalia says. “We actually don’t really know what his life expectancy is going to look like.”

Ian’s dad, David Ytsma, says that preparing for his son’s third surgery was the hardest because the then-four-year-old knew what was going on.

“When he walks down the hallway to the surgery room saying, ‘I’m scared Mommy, I’m scared Daddy,’ it breaks your heart,” David says.

On top of all that, the only day the specialist could do the surgery was on Ian’s favourite holiday — Halloween.

“You get so much candy,” Ian smiles. “You get to dress up as anything you want.”

When Ian’s neighbours heard about this situation, they rallied about 50 households together to organize something special a couple nights before the boy’s surgery.

“We had almost a hundred trick-or-treaters,” David says. “Yet Ian was the only one going door to door getting candy.”

Ian was too weak to walk too far that night, so after dressing-up as an astronaut, the boy was rocketed around the neighbourhood in a donated golf cart, while the other children chanted his name.

“Knowing that (the other kids) were not getting anything on their end, they were just there to support our little guy, melts your heart,” David says.

Along with a pile of candy, Ian also received books, activities and toys to keep him entertained in the hospital during his weeks of post-surgery.

“He just lit up,” Natalia says. “The smile on his face just made everything so magical.”

A year later, Ian is doing better than ever and looking forward to being out on the real Halloween night, with his whole family wearing Star Wars costumes.

Ian is dressing up as the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.

As they say in a galaxy far, far away, “the Force is strong with this one.” And in this community so, so close, the same can be said about his family and their neighbours.