A mother wishes her son's cancer 'never comes back'

By Louise KinrossNoah, 1, has blonde hair that stands up in exuberant spikes on his head. He loves to smile. When his dog licks his head, he giggles. If his mom Ivona Novak tells him not to go near an electrical outlet, he laughs and moves faster. He takes great joy in eating croissants, which he calls ‘Cru Cru.’ Only his mini-wheelchair hints at the cancer he was diagnosed with at less than three months. Noah was successfully treated with chemotherapy....

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Family's residency in limbo over son's cerebral palsy

By Louise Kinross Six years ago Kara Melissa Sharp’s family moved to Canada on a work visa her husband Alastair held as a journalist. They brought their son Sebastian, now 8, who has cerebral palsy. Since then daughter Tallula, 4, was born and is a Canadian citizen.  Three years ago the family applied for permanent residency. In November 2015 the government asked for additional information about Sebastian’s education and health. A year...

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Bloorview school: 'best place I've been to in my life'

By Louise Kinross Years ago I knew Osmond Shen as a student in our Bloorview School. He’s now 19 and in Grade 12 and we caught up in an e-mail interview. In the photo above in Spiral Garden, he appears with his seven-year-old brother Edmond.BLOOM: What disability do you have and how does it affect your life?Osmond Shen: I have cerebral palsy. It causes severe limitations in motor function, speech and communication, along with limitations in...

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Taking away a parent's guilt may be 'my best gift'

By Louise Kinross Physiotherapist Kelly Brewer didn’t picture herself working with children. For 11 years she worked with adults in the intensive care units at St. Michael’s Hospital. “I loved the teamwork, I loved the excitement, the new learning and the variety,” she says. “There was always something different working in intensive care.” But then in 1990 her kids began taking swimming lessons at Holland Bloorview. “St. Mike’s had the best...

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Rude words from doctors and parents harm care

By Louise Kinross In 2015, a team of Israeli researchers studied the impact of rude comments by another doctor on medical teams while they did a simulation of caring for a very sick premature baby. The words, from an expert the participants were told was observing them, included that he was “not impressed with the quality of medicine in Israel” and that medical staff in Israel “wouldn’t last a week” in his NICU in the United States. Twenty-four...

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Study links high-needs children to increased death risk in moms

By Louise Kinross Mothers of children born with major anomalies like heart disease or Down syndrome had a 27 per cent increased risk of death when compared with mothers of children born healthy, according to a population-based study published in JAMA last month. The researchers identified over 41,000 mothers in a Danish registry who had a baby born with major anomalies between 1979 and 2010. They matched each mother with 10 mothers of the...

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Doctor says we need to give parents space to go 'off script'

By Louise Kinross A year ago, Dr. Mohammad Zubairi was hired as a developmental pediatrician at Holland Bloorview after completing his fellowship training here. Most days now he’s doing assessments with young children and sharing the diagnosis of autism with their parents. Mohammad’s family has roots in Pakistan, where his grandfather was a doctor who dedicated one day a week to seeing poor patients at subsidized rates. Mohammad grew up in...

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Learning to swim in a random sea

By D. BrownIn this sea of life, we each have our own boat. Some ride in a big ship that gives them lots of room and keeps them safe. Others like a powerboat for speed and adventure. Maybe you just sail along, either enjoying the ride at the helm, or fearing every wave.Then at some point in life, your boat capsizes.For us, it happened five years ago. That’s when our healthy two-year-old angel suddenly seized. Over the next few days he...

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Amputee doc: We need to 'make room' for suffering

By Louise Kinross Last night I was scrolling through the New York Times and a giant magazine feature on Dr. BJ Miller popped up: One man's quest to change the way we die. BLOOM interviewed BJ, a palliative care doctor and triple amputee, back in 2011: Normal: It's not all it's cracked up to be.  Check out the New York Times piece for an in-depth look at how BJ used his own experience adapting to life as an amputee after an accident in university...

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