Written by guest blogger Dr. Joel Kirsh.

In two short days, I will be travelling north with two buses, 80 kids and 30 counsellors, on our way to what is increasingly known as “the best place in the universe.” Camp Oki is a summer camp like no other – it’s Canada’s first and only camp for kids with heart disease.

Camp Oki was created for kids who were “shut out” of mainstream camp programs due to a variety of cardiac conditions – and misperceptions of what these “kids with special hearts” could and couldn’t do. Thanks to our volunteers and generous donors, the camp has steadily grown from a long weekend program in 2004 for children with pacemakers and defibrillators to a week-long program for kids with any type of heart disease.

Camp Oki is a place where kids with heart disease can experience camp to the fullest – going tubing, swimming, playing sports, and making friends – a place where kids can, quite simply, be kids. At camp, they are encouraged to try new things – there is no sitting on the sidelines because you have a pacemaker or because you’ve had a heart transplant. Some of our campers first came to Camp Oki saying “I can’t do it”; they leave camp a week later saying, “I can do anything.”

This year, thanks to a generous donation from Cardiac Kids and The Firkin Group of Pubs, we are welcoming even more Camp Oki campers than before, at the Camp Oochigeas site in Rosseau. I’m excited about this new facility and looking forward to seeing both the new and familiar faces at camp this year.

Dr. Joel Kirsh is a staff cardiologist at The Hospital for Sick Children, a staff physician in Critical Care Medicine and an associate professor in Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. He is also the Founder and Medical Director of Camp Oki.