Love Actually

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends... If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around." – Love Actually (2003)

In light of the upcoming holiday season, I've broken out Love Actually. It's one of my very favourite films. I took a couple of hours to sit down with a small group of friends and family and watch it the other day and it reminded me of the small things we often take for granted in our lives. Whether it be our family and friends, our health or the opportunities we're presented with each day, we all have so much to be grateful for!

Thank you for reading my blogs over the course of this week! I want to wish each and every one of you a fond farewell and a very happy holiday season. May your holidays be filled to the brim with love!

The power of positivity

We've all known a person who complains about everything. I would think that all of us also realized at some point that this person was not the most pleasant to be around. But it's not always as simple to recognize how pleasant it can be to be around someone who is too busy being positive to complain!

I was reminded by a loved one the other day just how pleasant it is. Positivity is infectious, not only between people, but within a person. It makes us forget about our problems for a moment and think about others. Then it makes us realize how fortunate we are to our loved ones in our lives, and that makes them feel appreciated and even more loved, and then they show us that love in return. At the end of the day, we get what we give. I, for one, am of the opinion that the most important thing is love, because that's where the good things in life come from.


Positivity is something that I'm always working on myself. While I try to focus on the positive things in my life, I also have to remind myself sometimes that complaining about things does not make them better (whereas focusing on the bright side very often does). The silver lining is not always easy to find, but when you do find it, you begin to find that many more things had silver linings than you had imagined!

One thing I know I'm intensely grateful for is the support that I've received from so many people over the past weeks. I may have raised money and planned to donate my hair for others, but I also got so much more out of it than I can express. For starters, I got the amazing feeling of knowing that love and kindness is alive and well in the people all around me, including the complete strangers who made sacrifices of their own to help me. I will remember all of my supporters fondly, and they're memories that I know I'll keep with me for many years to come!

Staying connected

Quite a few years ago, I lost touch with a friend of mine. Several years passed and I almost began to forget about her. Then one day, the opportunity to reconnect presented itself and I jumped at it.



Even though we still don't see each other often, reconnecting with my friend is something I've never regretted. As far as friends go, there really isn't anything like an old friend. They are the ones who very often knew you before you became "you". That is to say, before life got in the way and you got too concerned with the silly things. The people who knew you way back when are just the people who will slap you silly if you forget where you came from, and sometimes we need that!

Our roots are not only important, but also something to be proud of. Why? Because they're a part of us. If we're not proud of our roots, then we can't really be proud of who we are now and the choices we've made. We've all been told that you can't love someone else unless you love yourself, and it's true.


Roots aren't always particularly unusual or "special", but that doesn't mean they're not important. Everything that has happened in our lives has had an impact on who we are. And besides, the beginnings lay the foundation for what we're working to make into a very special life!

What hope means to me.

I'm a busy woman. I study full-time as a Ph. D. student at the University of Ottawa and I teach Spanish classes three days a week. At the same time, I decided to begin a fundraiser for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. Many people thought I was crazy. "Where are you going to find the time?" they would ask me. But important things aren't hard to find the time for. Helping to bring cancer patients closer to the treatments they need is something that I'm really excited about. I'm a firm believer that helping people is good for the soul. There is simply nothing more rewarding than seeing someone smile when they discover that there is hope!




Someone once told me, "Hope is for sick people and losers." I cannot disagree more. Hope is an amazing thing, most especially when combined with dedication and hard work. It's what keeps a smile on our faces when things aren't going well. It's what makes us keep trying when we're knocked down. We hope that our actions will yield the results that we're aiming for. We hope that the people around us will be on our side when it matters the most. We don't have control over everything in life, but we do have control over how we look at the world. I am one who hopes.



It is with that in mind that I set a substantial fundraising goal and pledged to cut off my 3-foot-long hair for cancer patients. Yes, I have been working hard, but I also have hope. I hope that the people who hear about my goal (or others like mine) pay a moment of attention to an amazing cause. I hope that somewhere someone in need of a wig is as excited as I am about what I'm doing. And most importantly, I hope that others will see what can be accomplished when we put our minds to something!

Sharing a Smile

There’s nothing funny about cancer, but there are stories that can make people smile. They may be the proverbial needle in a haystack, but they exist and sometimes they can even inspire.


One of those stories is the Irving Greenberg Cancer Centre at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital. The four-storey, 85,000-sq.-ft. facility is already a world-class treatment centre offering shorter wait times for all procedures, including chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.

The centre is part of an expansion of the Ottawa Hospital Regional Cancer Program, and it’s estimated it will help 1,300 more cancer patients each year.

That’s worth a smile.

Dr. Adam Mamelak, a Queen's graduate who went on to study dermatology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was recruited last year to set up a clinic for the most common forms of skin cancer.

Thanks to a procedure called Moh’s surgery, 99% of patients will survive and will barely show a scar because dermatologists remove a portion of the tumour and examine the specimen while the patient waits. Thanks to an onsite teaching laboratory, dermatologists are able to continue working on the wound in small stages until all traces of the tumour are gone.

When the clinic officially opened in June 2009, there were 14 doctors in Canada and only two in Ontario who were trained to do the procedure.

That’s worth a smile. At least it was to the first patient who walked away healthier and unblemished and, I’ll venture, to countless more.

Then there’s my friend Madeline. I met her when I worked in Montreal for a community weekly newspaper. She had instituted a charitable foundation to help children of war-torn countries and I was given the assignment to have her tell me all about it for the paper.

Madeline wasn’t well when I first met her. She had Stage-5 cancer and had been given months, if not less, to live. She had to stop now and then to take a deep, tired breath, for which she apologized each time. Even feeling as awful as that, she was the picture and model of decorum. We sat in her atrium that showed off a gorgeous and full garden in her back yard (she wouldn’t let me leave without vegetables and herbs she harvested herself).

We hit it off, though I was immensely sad that our new friendship would be so brief. I guess that in the grand scheme of things our friendship was indeed brief, but it turned out to be longer and deeper than either of us could have hoped.

At one point, Madeline’s cancer seemed to be in remission. The last time I saw her she was lively and hopeful that her work was making a difference. She was given an award at her alma mater McGill University and I convinced my editor that it would make for another good story. So I tagged along and watched her work the room with such panache that I was humbled to be her friend. Some of the biggest wheels in the country were there, but she treated me as well or better than she did them. She made the coal feel comfortable among the diamonds.

I moved to Ottawa a short time later and while we stayed in touch we slowly travelled our own paths and drifted apart, as will happen.

One day, I found an email from Madeline on my computer. Or at least I thought it was sent by her. But it was her mom to tell me Madeline had passed away shortly before Christmas, some five years after they gave her months, if not less.

Her mom asked for my address, saying she had something to mail to me.

It was a New Year’s card from Madeline she had meant to send. The inscription was warm and personal, as though the few years apart had changed nothing.

I’m sad she’s gone, but immensely happy I was allowed to call her my friend for years longer than either of us expected.

And that, I think, is worth a smile too.

Walking A Mile in Her Shoes

I wrote about four sisters - their names won't be used because I haven't asked their permission to write about them again - who had every right to throw up their hands in surrender. Between them, they were diagnosed seven times with cancer. Breast (numerous), ovarian, melanoma, I can't even remember who had what because it was almost too much to take in. I'm sure as I interviewed them my jaw fell more than once.

One of them was walking in the Weekend to End Women's Cancers. Just one because one sister's schedule wouldn't allow it, one had just undergone surgery and one was about to go in.
I met three of them the day before the walk at a house on the outskirts of the city, in a lush back yard, where we sat and they told me their stories. One sister didn't join us because she had received her diagnosis just a day or two earlier and simply wasn't up to talking to a stranger about it. Especially when that stranger would tell tens of thousands of other strangers about her private hell. But the other three were unstoppable.
They were open and honest, funny and serious, but more than anything they were natural. They didn't sugarcoat what they were going through, but neither did they ask for pity either. Had it been offered, I know they wouldn't have accepted it. They all had reason to feel sorry for themselves, but this was the hand they had been dealt and, damn it, they were going to play it for all it was worth. I took a few pictures of them in this beautiful yard on a warm summer evening, arms around each other, one laughing so hard her eyes were squeezed shut. It wasn't technically the best of the photos I took, but it was the one we chose to use.
I called one of them a short while ago to see how they were. It had been months and, to be honest, I was afraid of what I'd be told.
My fears were unfounded.
Yes, they are all alive, but that's not all. One was currently cancer-free, the others recovering well. They know too well that anything can still happen, but why does that have to mean that anything bad can still happen? Maybe, sometimes it can mean anything wonderful and magical and - not long ago - unthinkable can still happen?
Cancer went after four of them attacking from all sides, but it hasn't won. As of this day, it's being fought with ferocious spirits and love for life that has it retreating. As of this day, there IS a day for four sisters who won't give up.

Fearing the Unknown

I’ve never had cancer, but I know firsthand the fear of thinking I might. A few years ago I was at work when my doctor’s receptionist called me to ask if I could go in to see the doctor. I had been coughing on and off for a couple of weeks and had already gone for a chest x-ray to what was what. I figured it was bronchitis or maybe even pneumonia, as I’d had both a few times before.

So I said, sure, I’ll try to get in to see him in the next few days.
No, she replied, he wants to see you right now.
Now?
Right now.
So this heightens the heart rate, let me tell you. My wife then called asking if the doctor had been able to reach me. They’d also called her at work. She sounded nervous, too, and said she’d meet me there.
That was not a good sign either, I thought. She works at the heart institute and sees all forms of scary things on a daily basis, so her sounding concerned was not a good sign.
I asked if they had told her anything. No, she said, just that they want to see me today.
My doctor works in a walk-in clinic, which means I usually have a wait of an hour or so to see him. Not that day. I arrived and they led me to an examination room. Again, right away.
I have to admit I was just a few degrees south of terrified by then.
"This is probably nothing,” the doc said, which made it all the worse because that meant it at least could be something, too. “There’s a spot in the x-ray we want to take a look at.”
A spot? What spot? Where?!
He showed me. It was on a lung and it was impossible to ignore.
My blood felt ice cold, but he did his best to keep me grounded.
Inside of half an hour, I had walked into the clinic without a real care in the world, all things considered, and walked out with the name and number of an oncologist. It felt like a dream, a very bad one, but it didn’t feel real. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I had even quit smoking a few years earlier!
I don’t clearly remember setting up the appointment because, as I said, it had all begun to feel like an out-of-body experience, as though I were watching myself go home, call the oncologist, and make the appointment.
Because of the lump’s difficult location, a biopsy was ruled out, so I had a CT scan done.
In the end, no one was really sure of what was - and still is - there, but they did manage to rule out cancer. And I was fortunate enough to experience for myself the incredibly devoted, professional and kind health care workers we have in this city.
Yes, it was terrifying, but I always felt that if the worst was going to happen that at least these tremendous people would give me a fighting chance.