 September 16 would have marked my Isobel's 26th birthday. I wish she was here to celebrate it with me and my son Sam.
As I'm typing this, a pop-up notification pinged across my screen with a prompt for her birthday. As if I needed to be reminded. It's been ten months since Isobel passed away and not a minute goes by that she's not on my mind. Particularly when I reflect on years past of decorating her room's door with streamers and balloons, getting ready for a special dinner together, or since 2023 having an overseas phone call to hear about her plans in Japan. Back when we were just dating, my husband Adam and I were having lunch on the patio at the once popular Lox, Stock & Bagel in Toronto's Hazelton Lanes. A little girl kept running up to our table and wanting to play. Her name was Isabelle. I'm guessing that this is the spelling but have no way to confirm it. Adam and I were so taken by her that we said "if we ever have a daughter, her name will be Isobel." Her dad wanted the name to be like the song by the famous Icelandic musician Björk. I'm adding a link here for you to watch the music video on Youtube, for a song that has so much meaning to me and remember my Isobel. She was such a beautiful, intelligent, talented and lovable young woman who was taken from the world way too soon. Thanks to the many who have brought me flowers, made donations to The Isobel Fanaki Memorial Fund, listened to me talk about Isobel and how much she is missed and the offers to go for walks or sit together. All of it helps.
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 A contributed article by Susan Lee Mintz
On August 17, 1994, my husband and best friend of 25 years passed away from AIDS-related pneumonia. For two years, we both knew the eventuality of his passing, BUT when it happened, I was frozen, numb, and robotically functioning. Where do I begin? Sadness, depression, emptiness, and continually asking God WHY him and not ME? I was lost. As the months and years passed, one day I realized that I had moved forward. There was still that hole in my heart that to this day nothing has, nor will, fill it, But I had gone on. I called hospice and began volunteering for them. They helped me and my husband during his illness and I wanted to give back. The American Red Cross, Cancer Society, and other organizations were where I felt I could also assist. Helping others to cope with their challenges was a way to start my healing process. Volunteering helped me accept that life does goes on and YOU don’t know where it might lead. I also went back to the gym, lifted weights and rode my bicycle. I rented movies, met new people, and spent more time with friends who knew what had happened. Exercise, spiritual strength, and prayer helped to ease my troubled heart. Although I went back to things that were familiar to me, I had to make changes and remove those “triggers” that could send me over the top and have me crying for days. I changed supermarkets, hair salons, music and restaurants where we used to eat. My parents were alive, and I flew from Boca Raton, Florida to Albany, New York every few weeks to visit with them. BUT the most important thing I did was write. I documented daily what was happening to Jeffrey and journaling was cathartic. Everyday for two years I wrote in my journals until he died. Decades later I finished my memoir titled “Committed to Love.” Eventually I wrote another book, “And I Help Their Hands with a Hospice Heart.” I did not know how to cope for so long, and though it still hurts at times, I know I have done the best with my life. I give God all the praise and honor because HE guided me through the darkness. In conclusion I say, “find your own way to grieve and go on.” You were put here for a reason and your life has meaning.
Dr. Jeffrey A. Mintz, I know is looking down on me and saying, “Well done, Susan.” Susan Lee Mintz is an author, lecturer, hospice volunteer and HIV/AIDS advocate from Boca Raton, Florida. To learn more about her, visit her website.  An important life skill is to learn how to manage stress. I'm learning more about this through an online program with Arizona State University.
 Today is Glioblastoma Awareness Day.
If you’re not familiar with this disease, it's the most common as well as most aggressive primary brain tumour. In 2016, my 47 year old husband Adam was diagnosed with it and passed away in 2020, one month before the global pandemic. For me and many others who have experienced life with GBM, today isn't something to celebrate or enjoy like other national days. Personally I wish I were instead writing an essay about ice cream or my favourite hobby. I was thinking about what to share with you on how I look back on our GBM journey. So I’ve chosen to give you a glimpse into the typical challenges for a GBM patient and their caregiver. Often I say that life with this terminal brain tumour started out horribly, got better through the middle years and ended badly with our loss. From the first moments that he heard, “you have terminal brain cancer and an average of 15 months to live” it threw Adam into fight or flight mode. Me too. We prepared ourselves to confront this news rather than escape it with the help of our medical team, friends and family by our sides. Never knowing anyone who had experienced GBM before, we couldn’t have imagined how hard the fight would be. So much in our lives changed:
Adam fought hard with a totally focused mindset. He changed his diet to be strictly Keto with only meat and vegetables; exercising for hours on our treadmill everyday; walking everywhere he could; and working as much if not more than before (and this is saying a lot because he was already a workaholic before the diagnosis). As he said to me, “If any of this makes me 1% better, I’m going to do it.” How do you argue with that logic? Here’s a hint…you don’t. You support it. With all of his efforts, Adam doubled his mortality rate to living with GBM for three and a half years. This may not sound like a big deal to those who don’t know this disease firsthand, but it WAS a big win. On top of the changes that their loved one is going through, caregivers to a GBM patient feel the complete upending of their own personal space and time. I became mission control for all aspects of his care, getting tasks done with the precision of a senior project manager and communicating his progress or regression with others. As no one wants to bother the patient, they go to their partner for all updates. Once his immediate needs were met, it was another challenge to find the time for housekeeping both inside and around our house, grocery shopping, laundry, paying bills, staying on top of his medications, helping with the children's homework and projects, preparing meals (only complicated more by the fact that he ate a restricted diet while my children and I did not) and hoping to grab a few minutes to myself for a bit of reprieve. This last bit was always a luxury but one that I recommend that caregivers schedule into every day. All of this was done with the utmost care and love but when a GBM caregiver tells you they are exhausted, it's not a stretch by any means. It’s the honest truth. They are completely spent. Many people came to our rescue with drives to appointments, meals dropped off on our porch, offers to sit with Adam so I could get away freely to run errands without being rushed and calls with funny unrelated stories that just made me laugh for a bit. They were our angels. What didn’t help were the “looky loos” as I call them who would only call or message to find out about Adam without offering help or any real emotional support. On top of that, I heard from them, “Do you think he got it because he uses his cell phone so much?” Dr. Alireza Mansouri, a neurosurgeon-scientist at Penn State and my colleague at WeTrials, offers this recent data-driven explanation, “there's no solid evidence linking GBM to common environmental factors like diet, smoking, alcohol, or cell phone use.” Read more in his post here. In closing, it's been years since I’ve been in the thick of living with a brain tumour patient while caring for him and our children. Days like today still hit hard but it motivates me to help others through their difficult journey. I’m lending my experience as an advisor and advocate at WeTrials, speaking at brain tumour conferences, blogging and being a peer support to those who are struggling to understand their next steps. Support is the most helpful thing that you can offer a GBM patient and their families so please reach out to those people in your life. To learn more about GBM go to WeTrials.com  Margaret Harvey loves riding her bike through the streets of Toronto.
Back in 2012, she was riding to work and stopped at a busy intersection in the downtown core. A garbage truck turned in-front of her, knocked her to the ground and ran her over with its back wheels. Margaret invited me to her home to learn more about that horrible day. "I was conscious right after the collision," she said from the comfort of her living room sofa in Toronto's leafy Riverdale neighbourhood. "The first thing I did was wiggle my toes to make sure I wasn't paralyzed." She was bleeding to death and rushed to the hospital where she underwent the first of 38 blood transfusions. Margaret was also intubated and suffered a fractured pelvis, lacerations to her groin and severe internal bleeding. After three weeks at St. Michael's Hospital, a trauma centre in downtown Toronto, and four months of rehabilitation therapy, she returned to work. Even without her full mobility, she thought that she was mentally and physically ready. In reality, “I set myself up for failure.” She went on a medical leave and suffered with depression. “I felt very alone and frightened.” She learned about a support group for trauma victims in the United States at The American Trauma Society partnered with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Something like this did not exist in Toronto and she was determined to create it, so she approached St. Michael’s Hospital about starting a trauma support group. One year later, along with the help of the hospital’s team of experts including social workers, psychiatrists and therapists, Margaret was able to launch the first Canadian Trauma Survivors' Network called, My BeST. The acronym stands for Beyond Surviving to Thriving. My BeST provides support to patients, along with their families and caregivers, who have experienced any type of trauma-related injury including: car crash, gun shot wounds, vehicle accidents and work-related injury. The group meets monthly and has open discussions as well as presentations from experts on a variety of topics including: pain and sleep management and advocacy. “It has been so rewarding to make so many friends with the same experience as me,” said Margaret. "It has given me so much confidence." Five years after her accident, Margaret purchased a new pink bike. She rode it home, taking the side streets. And now, at times, she'll even ride it all the way to St. Michael's Hospital. Email My BeST for more information at: [email protected]  Following a horrible car crash in 2012, Dawne McKay could not find an online support group.
“I was looking for others to connect with, who understood what I was going through,” she says. “I took it upon myself to create a group for people who share the same experience as me.” In April 2016 The Crash Support Network was born and within a few minutes of her first post, Dawne had a follower. “Jimmy was the survivor of a truck crash,” says Dawne. “For the first time, I didn’t feel alone.” The day of Dawne’s crash started out as a normal drive to work. She was taking a left turn at an intersection when the car behind her rear-ended her, pushing her car into the path of a transport truck. “I vaguely remember it,” she says. “I remember parts of the first impact and nothing of the second hit but recall someone holding my hand while we waited for the ambulance to arrive.” She stayed in a downtown Toronto trauma centre for 3 days suffering from multiple injuries. “It was a life changing experience where I felt very vulnerable from the moment the crash happened to the hospital stay and the long road to recovery.” Once time had passed, and the support she received at the hospital was over, the aftermath was overwhelming - dealing with insurance agencies, lawyers, and medical professionals as well as reeling from her experience. The mental, physical and financial aspects of a crash was a lot and something she didn’t want anyone else to experience on their own. From the moment she created a Facebook page for The Crash Support Network, Dawne’s days of feeling alone were over. When Jimmy wrote her, it was to say that he had been in a terrible truck crash and was worried about his wife and children. Completely understanding him, Dawne replied to say, “I went through a horrific car crash too - I’m here for you.” Group members will often say they wished they had known about such a support group sooner. Similar to the online community that Tara McCallan created for parents of children with Down Syndrome, the sentiment was, "I gathered an army to support us. We've been uplifted by people worldwide." The Crash Support Network group is private, one of a kind platform that provides a variety of helpful resources, allowing members to have open conversations with one another, creating a space for empathy, support, appreciation and respect. For Dawne, she gets teary thinking about what the group means to her. “I remember sitting on my couch feeling all alone in the struggles I was facing. When I created the group my goal was to help just one person and now I’m helping hundreds.” It’s a first-stop destination for crash survivors. Her resilience comes from desperately needing to find a sense of purpose, seeing the crash for what it was and wanting to help other survivors. “I have always believed in myself and understood that setbacks are temporary. I decided to focus my energy on creating awareness for survivors of motor vehicle crashes who may be struggling alone, and sharing my personal experience as a crash survivor is rewarding.”  Rohith Rao, Executive Director of the High Park Nature Centre in Toronto with Janet Fanaki. Building resilience can be done by helping others. I’ve seen this demonstrated in establishing two fundraising campaigns after the death of loved ones:
- the first was for people living with a brain tumour. - the latest is in supporting a program at the High Park Nature Centre (HPNC) in Toronto. The latter was established when my daughter Isobel Fanaki suddenly passed away in November 2024. Although she was living in Japan at the time, her previous employment was at the HPNC as an educator. Her brother and I are not professional fundraisers but leading with our hearts we collected thousands of dollars to sponsor a program which will allow children to experience fantastic programs in High Park without the burden of financial constraints. We know that this would make Isobel very happy. Thank you to our generous donors. ❤️ To learn more about the Nature Centre and our involvement visit www.highparknaturecentre.com To donate to our fundraiser, click here and support the opportunity for all children to enjoy High Park and its wonderful programs.  I spent a lovely time over the weekend with a dear friend of my daughter Isobel.
Since losing her in November 2024, it's brought me comfort to sit over coffee, lunches and dinners and even walks with her inner circle, in a way that wouldn't have been possible when she was alive. We're all gatekeepers to our friends. Especially when we're young. But we - or maybe its just me - rarely get to know our children's friends well. Her friends and I share our collective loss through memories and even a few tears from time to time. It's been therapeutic. Going through her personal belongings - another thing that never would have been done before November and has proven to be extremely emotionally difficult - I've given some of her books, sketches, posters and jewellery, just so her friends can have a special piece of her close by. This has all been a part of me moving forward from the tragic loss of my beautiful daughter. It's not healing because I don't believe that I'll ever be healed but having us now more closely connected helps.  continued from Welcome page My guests are authors, fundraisers, advocates, teachers, coaches, medical professionals and travel enthusiasts to name just a few. They all turned to a passion to help others after facing their own life-changing challenge. After facing so much loss and heartbreak over the last eight years, I've had to constantly draw on the tools that have helped me. Eating well, exercise, a positive community and having a purpose are some of the daily things that I hear over and over again that my guests do on a daily basis. I've learned that life is very unpredictable and some things are completely beyond our control - but it is possible to get through big challenges. Creating RESILIENT PEOPLE has led me to public speaking, advocacy work, consulting businesses and researchers as well as peer support. God knows that we all need like-minded people to walk alongside us. My message revolves around the power of finding purpose, tools for developing a strong mindset and the importance of surrounding ourselves with supportive people and developing good daily habits. I hope that you'll give RESILIENT PEOPLE a listen and will feel inspired. To get started, go to my podcast page and please tell your community about it.   Following the recent tragic passing of my daughter Isobel, the RESILIENT PEOPLE podcast is on an indefinite pause.
Thank you all for your kind words of condolence, meal drop-offs, flowers, emails, texts, drives and overall support. To learn more about Isobel, please read her obituary here. Her brother Sam and I established The Isobel Fanaki Memorial Fund to help fund the causes that Isobel felt connected to like nature conservancy and education as well as charities managing food insecurities. To date, we have given to the High Park Nature Centre and its Happy Camper Fund as well as to Food Banks Canada. We would like to thank everyone who has generously given to this fundraiser. Your donation means so much. When Isobel and Sam's father had passed away from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, we decided that it was important to focus on something positive that could help others - and in turn this became a way to also help ourselves through a painful time in our lives. Now with the passing of Isobel, Sam and I are doing the same in creating this fundraiser to honour her memory. To make a donation to The Isobel Fanaki Memorial Fund please click here. Thank you. |
What RESILIENT PEOPLE fans are saying..."This is one of my regular podcast listens. Janet's gentle and personable interview style makes me feel like I'm in the room with her and her guest having a relaxed chat. Even though the guests reveal challenging circumstances, the tone is one of positivity - I come away educated and inspired." |
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