Selena Goes to Camp—No Special Directions Required - by Natasha Koss
Two years in remission and my daughter Selena is doing great. Her hair has all grown back, she’s in school, she plays sports, rides a bike. She is thriving. To everyone else, she is a perfectly normal, happy, healthy seven-year-old. But in my overprotective eyes, she’s my little four-year-old, diagnosed with cancer. At school, I tell her teachers to take special care of her. “She is in remission,” I remind them. “She must hydrate often, make sure she eats her lunch and don’t let her run too fast.” If she has a tummy ache, I go running. And my daughter, knowing that, takes full advantage. Yikes! The problem is ME. I bubble wrap my daughter to make ME feel comfortable.
This summer, Selena threw me for a loop. I signed her up to several special needs camps for children with cancer, as I have for the past few summers. The week before the start of camp #2, she sat me down to tell me that she did not want to attend. She could not explain why, she just knew that this year she did not want to go. I needed a plan B and I needed it quick. Light bulb moment: What camp is her cousin going to and can I get her in? I called at 7:30 pm and the director answered…phew! Then, as luck would have it, she had a few more spaces for the session. “Sign her up please,” I said super excited, but oh so nervous.
I advised the camp director that my daughter is a child in remission, but promised myself not to tell the counsellors she needs extra love and attention and not to call the camp to check in. I let go and allowed my daughter to have a fun time at camp, no special directions required.
Watch Creating a Happy Home When Your Child has Cancer, featuring Natasha and Selena.
This was the first-ever “normal” experience of Selena's life since her diagnosis. Even after she went into remission, I became terrified of everything and tried the best I could to shield my daughter. Private school with her own teacher, camps that cater to children with special medical needs, whatever I could do to protect her. But now, Selena was standing up to me and saying, "No more mama I got this."
She had a blast at camp and had no trouble keeping up with the other children. I learn so much every single day from my incredible, brave, strong daughter. What a relief for me to know my child is living her best life.
Moral of the story, Selena is A-OKAY. Mom on the hand needs about 20 years of therapy to get over the fact that she was diagnosed with cancer.
Overprotective parenting is common after a childhood cancer diagnosis, but can it have negative repercussions later in life? Read Amanda Sherman's POGO-funded research: Is Overprotective Parenting Linked to Anxiety and Depression?
The Burden of Surviving Childhood Cancer - by Leanne Brown
When I was 10 months old, I had persistent raspy breathing that everyone thought was a cold or allergies. Then one night I stopped breathing. I was rushed to the hospital, x-rayed and sent to The Hospital for Sick Children where they found a tumour the size of a grapefruit wrapped around two vertebrae in my upper spine—neuroblastoma was the diagnosis. I was rushed into surgery to remove the tumour and a large portion of muscle and tissue out of my back. My chances of surviving were 5 - 10% and my parents were told that if I DID survive, I would likely be paralyzed.
After cobalt radiation treatment, I went into remission at 18 months old and never relapsed. As I grew up, my doctors explained to me the side effects I was experiencing, those that might still come, my inability to have children, and the fact that my life expectancy was not the same as my peers. For the rest of my life, cancer and I will walk together in some form. That is my basic medical story, but it is not my whole story. While most childhood cancer survivors become well adjusted adults, many have an affected sense of self and some may experience depression, anxiety or other mental health issues.
Watch Straight Talk: Emotional Health After Childhood Cancer
One rarely discussed issue is something I have been through, and most survivors I know have experienced: survivor guilt. It’s a hard concept to wrap your head around until you understand where it originates.
Growing up, many of the children who were treated alongside me did not survive; including a
friend who was very special to me. For a long time after he passed I felt guilty for living, in fact
I still do sometimes when another life is lost. But the feelings of responsibility don’t end there.
Logical or not, many survivors feel guilty for the sacrifices our parents had to make, for the social
and emotional challenges our siblings went through, and even for being who we are, rather
than super humans doing extraordinary things. There is a burden to be better than “normal.”
As an adult, the feelings have never really gone away, but I have found ways to deal with them.
As a teenager and young adult, the guilt, coupled with the deeper understanding of my own
mortality and no one to relate to, was very isolating. That is why I try to address the topic with
other childhood cancer survivors, especially the younger generation. It has catalyzed many
interesting and emotional conversations, and in some cases, provided a space for people to
voice something they have never said aloud before.
Leanne Brown has been a speaker at the biannual POGO Survivor Conference and POGO AfterCare Education Day. Although she was told she would never have the physical strength and endurance of her peers, she embraces life by skiing, running, hiking, camping and canoeing, and she even completed a half marathon in 2013. Leanne lives with her two children in Ottawa.
When Your Tumour Leaves You With a Disability - by Noah Severino
I was 9 years old when I was diagnosed with late stage rhabdomyosarcoma. I had been experiencing chronic fatigue, migraines and tingling in my face for over two months, but none of the doctors could find anything wrong. Then one morning I woke up and I was completely blind in my right eye.
The ophthalmologist found no reason for me to lose my sight so he ordered an emergency CT scan. I remember the pediatrician on call coming out of the viewing room and saying to my mom, “You need to get to SickKids Hospital right now; they are waiting for you.”
A tumour had basically encapsulated my brain and was moving; the doctors thought I was 24 – 48 hours away from dying. They started me on emergency chemo and radiation before they could even put a name to what I had. All in all, I had a total of 50 rounds of chemo and 30 rounds of radiation over the course of a year. Radiation caused third-degree burns on my cheek, head, in my mouth and down my esophagus, so eating was a real challenge. I used to drink coffee creamers to keep my weight up and because my mouth was so raw.
My tumour was so aggressive and advanced when I was diagnosed, that doctors wondered whether I would be able to overcome it. They wondered if I would be functional or articulate after such intense treatment, but here I am, 17 years later, a graduate of the Master of Management program at the Schulich School of Business, and thankfully cancer-free.
Anyone who knows a childhood cancer survivor knows that life doesn’t just return to normal when you are declared cured. The tumour severed my optic nerve and I am completely blind in one eye. The radiation permanently damaged my thyroid and my pituitary gland, and for a long time my tear ducts and salivary glands were not functional. I still live with daily headaches that range from two to nine on the pain scale.
I have annual checkups at my POGO AfterCare Clinic. They are monitoring me for secondary cancers (because of all the radiation) and cardiac issues that may arise due to the type of chemotherapy I had. I get regular MRIs to look for brain tumours and I am thankful that my results have been clear.
As you can imagine, a tumour around my brain, radiation to the head and a year out of school can put a kid at a disadvantage academically.
I was luckier than other childhood cancer survivors in the same situation in that a neighbour who was a retired teacher offered to be my private tutor to help me catch up—I was actually working at a higher level than my peers at one point. Still, I found school challenging (albeit a welcome one) and used special accommodations, like a note taker to help supplement my own notes in case I experienced writing fatigue or a migraine.
Watch Straight Talk: Assistive Technology after Childhood Cancer
Counsellors in the POGO School and Work Transitions Program (Transitions Program) work one-on-one with survivors like me to help us achieve our academic and employment goals. A HUGE challenge for me has been disclosing my disability when applying for a job. No one wants to hear that a potential employee isn’t going to be able to type quickly, or won’t show up for work some days because of the headaches and chronic pain he has to deal with.
The Transitions Program is funded entirely by donations from the private sector. DONATE TODAY.
Between some of the workshops I have attended, help from my family and talking one-on-one with my counsellor, I have the tools I need to advocate for myself. It is very intimidating to put yourself out there, but I have gained the confidence I need to say, “I’m a childhood cancer survivor and as a result of my treatments this is what I have to deal with, but I promise you I’m a hard worker and you will be happy with what I can do.”
I can honestly say that if I could go back in time and take away my cancer experience, I don’t think I would. It has shaped my goals and made me who I am. My hope is to one day work with other childhood cancer survivors or kids with serious illnesses to help them grow and be the best they can be.
Through his work with his POGO Counsellor, Noah received a number of post-secondary scholarships and graduated with a (Honours) Bachelor of Humanities from Carleton University and a Master of Management from the Schulich School of Business at York University. Noah is currently working at the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
Todd Cunningham, PhD: Assistive Technology After Childhood Cancer
Assistive Technology After Childhood Cancer
While the survival rate for childhood cancer is 82%, approximately 60% of these young survivors will experience long-term effects because of their cancer or treatment. The late effects that affect the brain and learning and cognition can range from mild to severe and can include cognitive impairment resulting in learning difficulties that can affect a young person’s success at school or in the workplace. Assistive technology is any technology that allows someone to use their natural strengths to overcome an area of weakness. Todd Cunningham explains that new technology exists to help with cognition, like reading and identifying important parts of the text. With artificial intelligence, the software can analyze a document and highlight the most important bits of information for the reader, cuing them to pay attention to that passage. Assistive technology reduces the cognition load, allowing you to pay attention to what’s really important and relevant.
Todd Cunningham, PhD, C.Psych is a psychologist with Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON. He spoke at POGO’s 2013 Survivor Conference: Life after Childhood Cancer where he presented these and other ideas.
Download a PDF of Todd's full presentation
Straight Talk about Childhood Cancer is POGO’s series of video shorts featuring the insights of experts whose leading-edge work impacts the care, treatment and quality of life of childhood cancer patients, survivors and their families.
Is Overprotective Parenting Linked to Anxiety and Depression?
#BellLetsTalk #mentalhealthawareness
Ms. Amanda Sherman, BA, MA, PhD(c), discusses her POGO-funded research study.
Your study looked at overprotective and overcontrolling parenting. Can you give us some examples of these two parenting styles?
I would define overprotection as a style of parenting that does not allow the child or emerging adult to experience stressful things. These parents might try to reduce harm even where the situation doesn’t require it. An overprotective parent might call their child’s friends to solve a problem or insist on driving them to destinations where they can easily walk or ride a bike. It is excessive care. Overcontrolling parenting has more to do with discipline and getting a child to behave in a specific way. A parent might say, “You can’t go out tonight because I don’t like some of your friends.” It is excessive control.
What is non-productive coping?
Coping strategies that are not effective in helping that person feel better (worrying, swearing,
avoidance and isolation, for example) are nonproductive because they may lead to more distress and anxiety. In children, one correlate of the development of anxiety disorders is overprotective parenting.
Are childhood cancer survivors more at risk for depression and anxiety?
When looking at levels of depression, we did not find that our sample differed significantly from normative populations; but we did find that anxiety levels were markedly higher than the general population—participants’ scores on our questionnaire were within one standard deviation from the mean score of people with anxiety disorders. That was surprising to me and something we don’t yet know how to account for. Maybe for this population so much of their childhood was focused on getting better, that learning to cope with stress was less important than getting by and managing their illness. Now they are emerging adults and they are facing the potential late effects of their childhood disease, as well as regular life stresses, and perhaps they are less equipped to cope. These are hard questions to answer.
Ms. Amanda Sherman, BA, MA, PhD(c) was the recipient of the 2013 POGO Fellowship Award. Her research focused on maternal overprotection/overcontrol and its relationship to coping strategies, anxiety and depression in survivors of childhood cancer. Her study looked at 109 survivors aged 18-30 attending the POGO AfterCare Clinic at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. POGO AfterCare Clinics monitor survivors at regular intervals so that potential long-term effects of treatment can be identified as early as possible.
You are doing your PhD in psychology. How did your career path lead you to study childhood cancer patients?
I did a practicum placement with Norma D’Agostino at Princess Margaret, where I was doing therapy exclusively with young adult survivors of childhood cancer. We noticed that problems with lack of autonomy, separating from parents and non-productive coping strategies kept coming up.
What can we take away from this research?
Now that we have this evidence that says overprotective parenting and anxiety are an issue in this population, we can target those parents and teach them how to socialize coping in their children. Even the oncologist can spend five minutes asking the parents and children a few targeted questions to
determine if there is a bigger issue, flag it, and refer the family to a psychologist to help them develop better coping skills.
What do you hope will come from your study?
This is preliminary research but even posing the question is opening doors and people are looking for potential issues when perhaps they weren’t looking for them before. Next steps from a research standpoint: our measure of overprotective and overcontrolling parenting needs to be validated and the study needs to be replicated with a non-cancer control group. I want to disseminate this research any way I can.
What does this POGO Fellowship Award do for your career?
This grant has allowed me to have time, space and community to do research. What I have enjoyed so much about POGO is how open minded everyone is about psychosocial issues, and psychosocial development. It has been nice to be accepted and encouraged for studying these kinds of issues, and working with medical professionals has helped provide a different perspective. It has been humbling, rewarding and encouraging at the same time.
When your 5-year-old asks, "What did I do wrong?" by Joby McKenzie
Calvin’s illness was something we never could have anticipated. One weekend everything was normal. He was a healthy kid, skating and doing gymnastics. Then on Sunday he started complaining about a pain in his leg. We thought perhaps he had fallen while playing so we went to the hospital in the early morning, but his pain had subsided and we left without doing any tests.
The next day and night he screamed in pain again and we took him to our family doctor who sent us directly to The Hospital for Sick Children. He obviously had his suspicions but ironically, even though my husband and I both work in healthcare, cancer never crossed our minds. We thought for sure it was a broken bone or worst-case scenario a crazy virus.
On January 31, 2017, we heard the words no parent is ever prepared to hear. Calvin was diagnosed with very high-risk leukemia and given a four-year aggressive protocol.
As you would expect, everything in our family’s world turned upside down. Calvin went from being an active little boy to a very sick patient. My husband Michael and I made drastic changes to our work and home lives to take care of our son. And Calvin’s siblings, Quincie and Payton, had to make many sacrifices as they learned to navigate this “new normal.”
It is impossible to be prepared to tell your 5-year-old he has cancer. He kept asking, “What is happening to me? What did I do wrong?” We are both scientists and it was complicated for us to figure out what to say to him in a way that he would understand. We told him, “There was a mistake in your blood and now we have to get rid of all the bad blood. It was random, like an accident.” For a while that answer wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to know what caused the accident, which there is no good answer for.
And then of course our other kids had their concerns. When our 7-year-old Payton had a pain, he asked, “Do you think I have cancer?” He heard at school about cancer being hereditary. And the other kids at Calvin’s school had their own questions as well; they wondered if cancer was contagious and why he was losing his hair.
This is where POGO came in. We are lucky here in Ontario because every family is assigned a specialized community cancer nurse when their child is diagnosed with cancer. Tina, our POGO nurse, came to our home to help our family adjust. She visited our kids’ school to address the concerns of the other children and talked to them in age-appropriate terms so they could understand what was happening to Calvin and what the effects of his treatment would be.
These past 12 months have been intense. Helping a family member with cancer is hard; managing cancer for your child breaks you apart. Despite this, we’ve actually been very lucky. I didn’t know how to navigate the healthcare system for my child with leukemia, so our nurse Tina became an important 
part of our team of support. And while most families have at least one parent who must give up their job, Michael and I have been able to work because our employers have provided us with the flexibility we need to manage Calvin’s treatment.
I work at LifeLabs and my colleagues have been unbelievably supportive of me. In fact Lifelabs is the presenting sponsor of POGO's Pajamas and Pancakes program, a relevant theme given how much time kids with cancer spend in their pjs. Thank you to my colleagues for supporting our family and for supporting the cause. And thank you POGO for everything you do for kids with cancer and their families.
It is surprising, but the world keeps spinning even when your child is going through something like this, and our family really appreciates all of the help and encouragement.
In November 2017, LifeLabs employees had a Pajama Party and invited Joby MacKenzie to talk about her son Calvin’s cancer diagnosis, treatment and support from POGO. Meet them both in this inspiring video Calvin Visits the Lab.
An Economic Evaluation of a Promising New Treatment for High-Risk Leukemia
POGO-FUNDED RESEARCH: An Economic Evaluation of CAR-T Therapy
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common form of childhood cancer and for most patients, the standard chemotherapy protocol works very well with an overall cure rate of 90%. But, there is a subset of this population that is treatment resistant. For these young patients, a relatively new therapy called chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T) therapy may be the answer.
CAR-T therapy uses the patient’s own immune system to do the work of destroying the ALL cancer cells. It starts with harvesting immune cells called T-cells from a patient’s blood. Millions of copies of these cells are grown in a lab—engineered to recognize, target and destroy the cancer cells—then infused into the patient’s bloodstream. Once back in the patient’s body, the cells divide and increase in number, creating a massive army against leukemia cells. Importantly, unlike an infusion of a drug, these cells can remain in the body indefinitely, providing constant surveillance against ALL’s return. The results to date are promising, but not without significant risk.
“Like most cancer therapies, CAR-T cell treatment can have severe and potentially fatal side effects,” says Dr. Alexandra Zorzi, pediatric oncologist at Children’s Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre. “The ‘activation’ of your own immune system can lead to the release of too many cytokines, which can result in laboured breathing, high fevers, and potentially life-threatening decrease of blood flow to internal organs.”
But when it works, it works miracles. At least that is what we know in the short term. “CAR-T cell therapy has the potential to be a major game changer in childhood ALL,” says Dr. Paul Gibson, medical officer with POGO. The early results have shown remarkable response rates, even in children who have been heavily treated for ALL previously. Not only is the response rate impressive, but so are the sustained remissions many patients are experiencing. “This is the first true gene therapy in childhood cancer therapy,” says Dr. Gibson. “While very expensive upfront, it may not only save lives, but save children from needing to be treated many more times in the future.”
Currently, this therapy is only offered at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The cost to send an Ontario patient for treatment is close to $500,000, not including the cost to families who often have to leave work and home for several months.
In 2016, POGO awarded Dr. Petros Pechlivanoglou with a seed grant for his project “Economic Evaluation of CAR-T Therapy for Children with High Risk Relapsed ALL.” Dr. Pechlivanoglou and his co-investigators—Drs. Sumit Gupta, Jason Pole, Paul Nathan, Tal Schechter-Finkelstein and Wendy Ungar, together with PhD student Jill Furzer—are using statistical and mathematical modelling to determine the value of CAR-T therapy from a clinical and economic perspective. What is the trade-off between the treatment’s effectiveness and its cost to the Canadian healthcare system and society overall? Where should we focus our efforts to collect more evidence in the future? And, how will this information be used to inform policy decisions?
“This economic evaluation of CAR-T therapy is only one example of new therapies,” says Dr. Petros Pechlivanoglou. “As new cancer innovations emerge, both in the pediatric and the adult world, we are going to have this challenge of understanding the ‘value-for-money’ proposition again and again. This grant will help us tease out the methods needed to find timely answers to such questions and make prioritization decisions about future clinical, economic and policy research.”
- Petros Pechlivanoglou, PhD
Dr. Petros Pechlivanoglou is a scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on methods around the use of health decision analysis, administrative data and prediction modelling in economic evaluation, and the health economics of pediatric oncology and pre-term birth.
Why I Volunteer by Emily Hamilton
I grew up with a volunteering mindset. My dad lost his sister to a brain tumour when they were young and he has always involved our whole family in fundraising for cancer organizations.
When I was in grade four, my sister and I were watching the Kentucky Derby (we’re both big horse people!) and there was a feature on a girl named Alex—she was battling cancer and decided to start her own lemonade stand to raise funds for pediatric oncology. We were immediately drawn to it. We thought, “Hey, why not try this at our school,” and over the course of two years we raised $300! After a bit of research online, we decided on POGO as our charity of choice and we were able to present a cheque to one of POGO's founders, Dr. Mark Greenberg himself, which was really cool.
I continued to donate and follow POGO over the years, so when I received an email from the kinesiology department at school outlining an opportunity to join Team POGO for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, I jumped on it. It felt like destiny was bringing me back to the charity I started volunteering with at a young age.
I signed up to be a POGO Team Captain because I felt that my fundraising experience would give me an edge. Although $1,000 seems like a big number, we have several months to get to that goal. Erika, our POGO contact, is very helpful and motivating. She sends us weekly emails with stories that make us feel connected to the cause and coaches us on how to get the word out and raise money. A lot of students wouldn’t know how to go about it if they haven’t fundraised before.
I have never run a marathon but I am passionate about athletics. My university friends are also coming on board and we have a bit of a competition going. Of course if anyone wants to join our team, please sign up here; the more the merrier! You can run the full or half marathon or even just the 5K. All funds raised will go to support POGO and the work they do for kids with cancer.
I can see myself continuing to volunteer with POGO beyond the race. I love the values of the organization—that they support the whole family when a child is affected by cancer and they continue to support survivors later in life. The scope of what POGO does is so broad, I feel like the reasons I am committed to the cause today will change and grow as I learn more about everything they do.
Emily Hamilton is 22 years old. She recently graduated from The School of Kinesiology at Western University in London, Ontario and is working part-time in a physiotherapy clinic.
Dear Mom by Jamie Irvine
It’s hard to believe that it was 21 years ago when I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Like many families, you and Dad had to “split responsibilities” to take care of the family, so while he continued to work, you spent your time in hospital with me or at home with Ben.
To say my treatment was rough would be an understatement. As my cancer was caught late, doctors gave me a 55% chance of survival at best. Being the type of kid I was, I made you promise to tell me if I was going to die, and then the day came when you had to keep that promise. A new doctor misread my chart and told you I only had days to live. I found out years later that you spent an hour outside my room with the unit social worker trying to figure out how to break it to me.
Later, in treatment, I became allergic to random donor platelets and because you were the closest genetic match, you provided every single transfusion for the rest of my three-year hospital stay. It got to the point where your arms became so covered in bruises that the hospital had to monitor how much you had given. You also became my bone marrow donor, which I know was one of the most painful experiences of your life. It didn’t end there though.
Just before my second bone marrow transplant, I developed that sudden “bone pain” and the hospital gave me a morphine drip to help cope. Unfortunately, this drug didn’t make me happy or drowsy like with other patients. Instead, it completely changed my personality and made me very angry and hostile to everyone. I would scream and threaten anyone that came into my room. Worst of all, I would scream at you. I would tell you how “I wish I would die,” or worse, how “I wished it was you instead of me.” I don’t remember much of that time in treatment but I do remember that you would just take all the verbal abuse I dished out. Instead of lashing out or fighting back, you would tell me how you wished you could take on all of my pain. Years later, you told me that you asked the social worker why I would say such things. They told you that I knew (subconsciously or not) that you would not abandon me. It must be true because you are still here supporting me.
Throughout those dark times, you still cared for and spoiled me. When I was wasting away from lack of nutrition, bald from chemo and had a feeding tube dangling from my nose, you still took me out on day trips to my favourite comic or video game store. You must have given the evil eye to anyone who looked at me funny because no one ever said anything. I even remember when you spent a whole month tracking down that one rare video game that I just had to play.
To this day, I still don’t know how you found the strength and courage to manage. I don’t think a normal person could go through all that and still offer the loving support and care that you did. I don’t know if I will ever be able to have children (due to the treatment I went through) and at this time I’m still too scared to find out. But I know that even if I’m able to show them half of the love and strength that you continue to show me, I will make one hell of a parent.
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Mommy you'll be.
-Modified from Robert Munsch's Love You Forever
Love Jamie
A Call from Greatness by Jamie Irvine
In the spirit of playoff season, I want to share my little brush with hockey fame when I was going through cancer treatment at just 11 years old.
When I was six years old, my family moved from Saudi Arabia back to Canada. Coming from the desert, I had never experienced winter before, let alone this otherworldly-like game called hockey. I was immediately hooked.
I had great dreams of one day joining the NHL myself, dreams that were quickly dashed after my first attempts at learning to skate resulted in such highlights as me crashing into walls while trying to stop and throwing up after drinking too much hot chocolate. Soon my passion focused on collecting hockey cards and watching the game on TV. It was my personal goal to collect every card or watch every game that even mentioned Wayne Gretzky.
When I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. To say that my early days of treatment were difficult would be a gross understatement. In truth I was defeated and had given up hope. Then one day, out of the blue, I received a call to my hospital room.
“Is this Jamie Irvine?” said the male voice on the other end of the phone.
“Yes,” I said.
“This is Wayne Gretzky.”
And so the conversation began, lasting between 5-10 minutes, but honestly everything is a blur after he said his name. I was in pure euphoria.
A few weeks passed and I received a care package in the mail from Wayne himself. It was full of signed pictures and various other goodies. All of which I still treasure to this day.
Pretty cool story, right? Well it doesn't end there. A few years later, my family had moved to Newmarket, Ontario, and I had just finished an experimental treatment and was given the all clear. I attended Camp Oochigeas that summer and met a man named Gordon (Gordo) MacKay. He happened to share my passion for all things Gretzky and after I told him my story, he revealed that he had helped design Wayne Gretzky’s restaurant in Toronto. He invited my family to a free meal at the restaurant and I was shown the “secret” storage room full of Gretzky memorabilia. Gordo let me try on some of the Gretzky jerseys and gloves while my brother got to try on some of Michael Jordan's game worn shoes. Fun fact: Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan would occasionally exchange skates and shoes.
For me, Gretzky’s title “The Great One” goes beyond his hockey record. He was willing to reach out to a sick child who was feeling defeated and offer the support only a hero like him could provide. And for that, I am forever grateful.
To this day, Wayne Gretzky remains my favourite player of all time and my passion for hockey has not waned. Of course, these days I cheer for our home team.
#GoLeafsGo!