The Big Picture: Meet one of Sunnybrook's Veterans Centre residents

Sunnybrook is blessed with an amazing photography team who, arguably, know every person (and their backstory!) in this ten thousand strong workforce. So when I got an email from one of them with a video link, I was intrigued.

What appeared on my computer was completely unexpected: an old black and white mini-documentary of a young Reuters photographer named Patricia Holden. Over a peppy male voiceover, the video showed Patricia on assignment photographing a baby, and then returning back to the newsroom to develop her film and finish the job. Like an early Mary Tyler Moore, she was dressed in a knee-length tweed skirt and smart hat, world at her feet. How appropriate that the Pathe Pictorial video, produced just after the Second World War, was entitled “Women Going Places.” Today, more than half a century later, Patricia is still going places, having recently become a new resident of Sunnybrook’s Veterans Centre. I literally couldn’t wait to meet her in person.

A few days after watching this grainy slice of history on my MAC, I walked into Patricia’s room over in Sunnybrook’s K wing. She was sitting quietly by the window in a wheelchair, looking outside at the early fall weather. Her windowsill was covered with pictures in frames, as was the wall behind her bed. From General Eisenhower to Shirley Temple, it was a fabulously random mix that I was soon to learn perfectly reflected her unexpected ascent into this line of work. She turned to say hello and shake my hand. Despite the decades that had divided her from that early video, I recognized her right away. Eyes never change, you know? After a few pleasantries, I started our interview with what I thought was a simple question: How did you get into photography? As I mentioned earlier, her path into this pioneering role for women of her day wasn’t at all what I had expected.

In 1942, Patricia and some girlfriends happened to walk by a recruitment office when they noticed some very cute boys hanging around outside. Thinking it would be a good way to find dates, they signed up for the Royal Canadian Air Force. But as only the cruel ways of fate can script, Patricia was posted to the Women’s manning depot. No men allowed! Frustrated with the all-female environment, she jumped at a Wing Officer’s offer to keep busy by learning the art of photography. Following a challenging course, she passed and started her career in pictures. While she admits to professionally feeling like a babe in the woods for a while, she was happy her new job at least opened the door to more co-ed working environments!

Over the next few years, Patricia would go on to capture a huge range of images, from weddings and medal presentations to funerals and bombings. After the war, Reuters hired her to shoot fashion, celebrities and various daily assignments. It was there that the documentary emailed to me was produced. You can view the entire thing here yourself.

Just so you know, Patricia eventually enjoyed many dates and even found herself a honey. Art Collins was a fighter pilot who was awarded the French Legion of Honour and distinguished Flying Cross. They married and raised five children together. While she didn’t meet him on that sunny day outside the recruitment office in 1942, we all know love works on its own schedule.

Now windowed, Patricia has been a resident of Sunnybrook’s Veterans Centre for several months. Amazingly, she remembers being sent on assignment here to photograph Sunnybrook’s opening. We sat and talked about how funny the coincidence of that was, when things come full circle in life. Kind of like seeing a video from the 1940’s and then meeting its main character in person. Funny and wonderfully unexpected.

With Remembrance Day around the corner, it’s a reminder of the value in the stories and lessons we can learn from our veterans. Take the time to ask and listen. As I learned, it just might be one of the most surprising and fulfilling conversations you’ll ever have.

For more information on the Veterans Centre, and learn how you can help support a Veteran through Operation Raise a Flag.

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- blog post and video by Monica Matys

Body Language

You’ve lived with your body for a while, and you know what it can do. If that ever deviates, even for just a few minutes, be warned. Arnold Bobkin’s story speaks to this loud and clear. Earlier this year, he was in the shower when the trouble started. He suddenly became paralyzed on one side, and was afraid he would fall over if he took a step. Trying to make nothing of it, he muddled through, dried off and proceeded to style his hair by plugging the blow dryer into his ear. He topped off his morning grooming routine by brushing his teeth with his finger. At this point, he wife insisted it was time to go to the emergency department.

Good thing he did. Arnold was having a TIA, short for transient ischemic attack. TIA’s are like mini-strokes, and put people at serious risk of having a full-blown stroke, often within hours or days. If Arnold had ignored his symptoms, and not received care at Sunnybrook’s High-Risk TIA Unit with its dream team of experts, he likely wouldn’t be golfing three times a week like he does now. Doctors found a major blockage in the carotid artery in his neck, which is a serious red flag. Surgery is usually the fix, but the trick is getting it done quickly if you are having symptoms.

Outside Sunnybrook, it’s been found that not all symptomatic patients receive this procedure within the recommended time frame of two weeks, something Sunnybrook experts are working with the Ontario Stroke Network to change. As the saying goes, time is brain.

Remember that if you are having symptoms of a TIA, including sudden trouble speaking, seeing or moving, call 911 right away. There are protocols in place to direct patients with TIA or stroke symptoms to a designated Regional Stroke Centre like Sunnybrook. Or, like Arnold, listen when a loved one tells you it’s time to go to the hospital.

“It’s a very strange phenomenon that happens to your body that you don’t know what is going on,” he recounted. “For whatever reasons, I didn’t know what I was going through until my wife told me. If the worst had happened, I would have had a major stroke within the hours afterwards.”

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but the shot of Arnold’s arteries in my video clearly illustrates how dire his situation was. It all goes to show that what you can’t see can hurt you. So if your body is trying to tell you something, make sure to listen.

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Next Day Knowledge

Call it the genetic grab bag. Everyone has one, but whether you’ve stuck your proverbial hand in it yet is another matter. In my family, there is a history of heart problems and bad eyesight. For other families, like Cori Woolley’s, breast cancer is the monster in the closet.

Both Cori’s mother and aunt had breast cancer, and having just celebrated her 49th birthday, Cori was well aware that she had reached the age when her sister had been diagnosed. But that’s where the similarities end. Cori’s sister took about six months of testing to get her diagnosis. After finding a lump in her breast, it only took Cori a matter of days to get the good news that she didn’t have the disease.

Cori was a patient in Sunnybrook’s Breast Rapid Diagnostic Unit, or RDU, which gives next-day diagnosis and personalized screening recommendations for all patients. A Nurse Navigator walks each patient through the process from start to finish, which often includes ultrasounds, mammograms and, potentially, a biopsy. It’s a huge advance, cutting down typical wait times from weeks to mere days.

“I can’t imagine having to wait for results and wondering what’s going on in your body and the feeling that does bring on, inevitably, for me was only a couple of days,” Cori told me. “Right then and there on the spot they said, this does not look like cancer. I got hugs all around. Everyone was very emotional. It was really a very special experience.”

Cori knows she is still at increased risk, and will receive ongoing monitoring appropriate to her situation, which includes annual mammography and follow-up in Sunnybrook’s High Risk Clinic.

Whatever the contents of your grab bag, it’s all about managing the contents as best you can. Prevention, screening and knowledge are the best tools around. Make sure to get yours!

Click here for more information on Sunnybrook’s Breast Cancer Care.

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Mind Your Heart

My first job out of university was at a medical publishing company in Montreal. It was staffed with several of my friends from school, all settling for the trade off of low pay for some real work experience. While I was busy learning the foreign ways of doctor speak, language of health care, it was a colleague in my office that taught me my first life lesson about mental illness.

I’ll call her Sue in this blog, and she was a sweet, almost soft-spoken girl I barely noticed until she returned to work after our first Christmas break at the company. Her personality seemed to have taken a drastic shift, bubbling over with energy and a euphoric kind of happiness. Within a day or two, that elation would cycle into episodes of extreme sadness. This continued for several months, and while we all noticed it, no one knew what to make of it. The irony strikes me now that we were all working in medical communications and couldn’t put a finger on bipolar disorder.

Known in the past as manic depression, bipolar disorder can lift and drop its host between opposing mood swings that can last from hours to months. Bipolar disorder also increases the risk of heart disease, accelerating the onset by up to 15 years. The big question is, why?

A new and unique Sunnybrook study is hoping to find out. Researchers will use high-resolution ultrasound to look at the blood vessel functioning in the forearms of teens to look for potential clues about heart disease risk. For example, is there inflammation? A blood test will also be done to look for things like proteins that could offer an answer. Participants are still being recruited, so if you’re interested, you can contact Katelyn at 416-480-5283.

The hope in studying teens is that the connection between heart disease and bipolar disorder will become more clear. Teens are typically in better physical condition, so any differences in, say, how the blood vessels work should be easier to spot. It’s also a pretty rare for specialists from the head, heart and imaging all come together for research, so what they find should be intriguing.

It’s been many years since I last saw Sue. Through family support, and the insistence of a senior editor at my old company, she eventually did get proper diagnosis and care for her bipolar disorder. The last I heard, she was doing well and enjoying married life with children. Hopefully, with ongoing research, more people like her can be helped in the future.

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A Different Perspective

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When I remember back to being 20, life was all about school, boyfriends and the future (not always in that order!) Nothing heavy, even though these simple scenarios may have played out dramatically at the time. There wasn’t a thought in my head about getting sick. Now, with the wisdom of hindsight, I realize how fortunate I was.

Johanna Stuehrenberg didn’t have that luxury. Last year, she started having trouble with her vision. She initially thought her glasses were to blame, but then other symptoms, like vomiting and headaches, started. After a trip to a walk-in clinic, the doctor there assured her it was probably just stress and definitely not a brain tumour. What consolation, she remembers. But that diagnosis couldn’t have been more off the mark.

Johanna’s symptoms persisted, and worsened, so she went back to the doctor. A CT scan finally revealed there was a major problem: liquid pressuring her brain that would require immediate surgery. Sunnybrook surgeons successfully removed a 4-centimeter cancerous tumour from Johanna’s brain, and she was then treated with radiation. What a physical and emotional journey to endure in just a few short weeks.

Now, more than a year after her ordeal, Johanna is doing extremely well. We met outside the Odette Cancer Centre for her interview, and what I saw was a beautiful and funny young woman having to, at a very young age, re-plan her life. Part of that rebuilding, she says, is sharing her story to help other younger cancer survivors. “I think when you hear about cancer, you think of older people, forties or up,” she told me. “But there are so many that are young and don’t have the great support.”

Fortunately, Johanna found support in the community and has an extremely strong family unit. Her parents even bought her a cat after her ordeal. (He is the same gray colour represented on the Brain Cancer Awareness Ribbon campaign, but that was total serendipity.) Sunnybrook’s Patient and Family Support team is also helping Johanna rehabilitate, and reintegrate, into everyday living.

“Cancer is not a chance to give up on life,” Johanna says. Hopefully, now is the time she can start thinking about school, boyfriends and the future again, in whatever order she wants.

For more information on Sunnybrook’s family support group, click here.