St. Joe's Fourth Annual Celebration of Life Event
Pictured above: June McQuain and her husband, Bev McQuain with their book “June’s Journey”
Photo credit: John Rennison, The Hamilton Spectator
Every year for the past four years, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton hosts a Celebration of Life event that is held to celebrate those that have survived cancer and gone through the Lung Diagnostic Assessment Program (LDAP). The LDAP begin in 2011 as part of the plan to have the regional centre of thoracic surgery located in Hamilton in order to decrease wait times and improve patient experience. Since then, the partnership between St. Joe’s, the Juravinski Cancer Centre, Brant Community Health System and Niagara Health System has developed into a leading program servicing our region providing lung cancer care from quick diagnosis, through to treatment, recovery and follow up.
About 200 people attended the Celebration of Life event this year, 78 of which were lung cancer survivors. Hospital officials believe this to be a great achievement of attendance, as only about 20 percent of lung cancer patients see beyond five years after diagnosis, often because of the fact that this type of cancer is often discovered in an advanced stage.
A few of the survivor attendees shared their recovery story with the crowd in different ways. Joseph Roy, a 63-year old from Welland belted out two songs with pride and joy as a lung cancer survivor. "I thought I would show what a person with one lung can do," Roy told the celebrants. "This is an honour." June McQuain, 76-years old from Guelph and Waldeman (Wally) Lesniak, 67, spoke at the event describing their journey and recovery. During her care journey, June McQuain’s husband illustrated cartoons of her experience as a way to cheer her up. Those cartoons were then gathered together with hopeful and educational messages from healthcare professionals within the LDAP circle of care to create a book titled “June’s Journey.” As a gift to lung cancer survivors, the book was presented at the celebration.
To view the comic book “June’s Journey,” click here.
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