2023 year in review: editors' picks
this year has been filled with compelling stories, from patient and caregiver stories, to key topics such as mental health, and others that challenge the status quo in the pursuit of a better future.
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between 10 and 13 per cent of veterans struggle with ptsd, while another 17 per cent cope with mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. getty
this year has been filled with compelling stories, from patient and caregiver stories, to key topics such as mental health, and others that challenge the status quo in the pursuit of a better future.
here our some of the most memorable stories as chosen by our editors in 2023.
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what it feels like: ‘watching and waiting’ while living with prostate cancer
anthony henry, 62, a financial advisor in brampton, ont. was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2015, 14 years after his father passed away following a stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis. his brother and uncle have also been diagnosed and treated. henry sat down with healthing to talk about his role as co-vice-president of the black walnut foundation, a black male prostate cancer support group, what it’s like to live with disease that needs to be monitored and why prostate cancer is different for the black community.
anthony henry, pictured with his wife carol mcintosh-henry, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2015, 14 years after his father passed away following a stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis. supplied
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machado: forget the gratitude journal. what makes you feel free?
i met up with a few friends for a coffee last week. we’d been talking about how unbelievable it was that our children were old enough to be getting ready to go to university. after a quick catch-up on where each kid was planning to study — and lamenting, ‘oh, where does the time go’ — the conversation quickly spiralled downward toward the perils of aging, the relentlessness of wrinkles (“that stuff about laugh lines is b.s.,” one friend sputtered over her frothy cappuccino) and why ‘crepey’ was now an appropriate way to describe the skin on our necks.
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a strong coffee with dark chocolate, a dog invited up onto the bed, an avocado, and bruce springsteen on repeat makes everything feel ok, writes lisa machado. getty
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ptsd in veterans of war is still cloaked in stigma, but ‘asking for help is a sign of bravery’
imagine yourself a stranger in a strange land. everything is foreign to you: the weather, the landscape, the food, the language, the customs, the culture, the people. it might sound like an exciting adventure holiday. but now imagine many of the people in that strange land are trying to kill you. it’s not a vacation — it’s a war. deployed members of the canadian armed forces expect combat to be dangerous, but are they fully prepared for it emotionally and mentally?
between 10 and 13 per cent of veterans struggle with ptsd, while another 17 per cent cope with mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. getty
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machado: canada’s decision-makers have an all talk, no action, way about them and it stinks
i live in a pretty connected community. people notice the routines of others and don’t hesitate to step in if something’s off (mrs. g, thanks so much for letting me know that my son wasn’t wearing his coat this past tuesday when it was snow/raining). so it wasn’t weird when a neighbour from around the block sent a message on facebook to ask if i was ok since he hadn’t seen me walking my dogs lately. we chatted a bit, covering everything from his aging cat who sleeps all the time to the annoyingly large house that was being built down the street to the suddenly freezing weather. then he mentioned his wife. “she seems to be losing her memory,” he wrote. “and it takes about a year to get testing.”
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being overworked, understaffed, overwhelmed and underfunded are legitimate reasons for a failing healthcare system, but it’s what comes next that bears mentioning: nothing.
getty
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opinion: precision medicine offers cancer patients a better chance at survival – why are we making them wait?
there is a revolution underway in the way we treat cancer. instead of the traditional “cut and burn” approach to cancer treatment, precision medicine — or precision oncology — is allowing us to take targeted aim at tumours, reducing side effects and damage to healthy cells, as well as increasing the odds that the treatment works. it also means that the right cancer treatment gets to the right patient, at the right dose, at the right time. there’s more potential than ever before for cancer patients to live longer, enjoy a better quality of life and, most importantly, survive this devastating disease. except that for many canadians who live with cancer, complex regulatory and approval pricing models and fragmented health-care systems make these innovative therapies impossible to access. this needs to change.
time past concept with hourglass. sand running through the bulbs. obituary banner with copy space
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my son will be transitioned to adult care without having a doctor who understands his disease
there is one word i can’t stand. it’s a word that, as the mother of a child who requires complex care, makes me cringe and my stomach clench: transition. transition, as in the termination of all working relationships with the pediatric medical specialists that have cared for my son, jacob, since his diagnosis. when he was 10 months old, we learned that jacob had pelizaeus-merzbacher disease (pmd) — a rare, progressive, and degenerative central nervous system disorder — and was unlikely to live into his teen years. when he was in the midst of a 236-day hospital stay, his doctors had my husband and i tell jake’s younger sisters that their brother was unlikely to live until his next birthday. he was 13 at the time.
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marcy white’s son jacob lives with pelizaeus-merzbacher disease, a rare degenerative central nervous system disorder. supplied
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