All my life, I’ve been given deadlines.
It started when I suddenly lost the vision in my left eye at 14. A year earlier, my cousin had died of eye cancer, so doctors feared a tumour. I was flown from Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto, where they ran tests, but it was 1972—they didn’t have the diagnostic tools they have today.
Three years later, I was coming back from a trip with friends when my feet started tingling. By the time we reached home, the numbness had crept up to my knees. By morning, I couldn’t move my legs.
The doctors weren’t sure what was happening, but they found elevated gamma globulin in my spinal fluid. That was enough to confirm multiple sclerosis (MS).
Then came the first deadline.
“You’ll be in a wheelchair soon, bedridden by 27, dead by 35.”
I had always been polite, a “good Baptist girl,” people would say. But in that moment, something snapped. The words flew out—sharp and profane. I rejected the future the doctor tried to assign me.
My parents expected me to finish high school, find a menial job and wait to die.
Instead, I went to university. I got a bachelor’s in religious studies from University of Waterloo, then a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton. At 30, I did my Master of Journalism degree at Carleton.
I became the editor of the Manitoulin Expositor after working as a reporter at The London Free Press. I worked for CBC Radio, where I had my own morning show. I freelanced for The Toronto Star, Northern Ontario Business, The Sault Star and more.
I wrote. I travelled. I climbed mountains. I fell in love—a few times. I lived.
At 27, the age I was supposed to be bedridden, I went dancing on an all-night pub crawl.
Unfortunately, 1996 was my annus horribilis when I was corporate editor at a Crown corporation.
My only sister, who also had MS, died of ovarian cancer in January and our last aunt died in March. In May, our beloved mom died of a massive stroke. That autumn, I began to get sick to my stomach, first bloating until it turned hard. My doctor waved it off as the flu, but I insisted she do an internal exam. Thanksgiving Friday, I was operated on for a 10-pound tumour. I joked I gave birth to a 10-pound turkey. That Wednesday, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer; they told me I had a year to live.
Six surgeries later, I’m now cancer-free.
In 2022, my bowels began failing. Again, I was given an expiration date: three months.
That fall, my husband Dennis and I made one of our semi-annual trips from our home in Stratford, Ontario, to the MS clinic at University Hospital (UH) in London. Without beating around the bush, my neurologist told me I was palliative with end-stage MS. This didn’t mean I would die immediately, but they shifted focus from treatment to quality of life.
I now suffer from all the final stages of MS, but I can’t say enough about the MS clinic and the Care of Advanced MS clinic at UH. They provide extraordinary care.
All my life, I’ve been given deadlines and this made me decide how I want to die—on my own terms. When I can no longer eat or communicate, I will pursue medical assistance in dying (MAiD).
I’ve written six books. I’ve been awarded the Order of Canada. I have lived a full, rich, incredible life.
I’m tired, but I still find joy.
When people see me out in the summer in my electric wheelchair, I’m in high gear, the wind rushing through my hair. They call my name, but they can’t get my attention. I’m going too fast.
I chuckle and think, “Eat my dust.”