Optimistic Good-Humour Survivor

"I shouldn't have been here past last summer. Nobody knows why I am still here, but here I am, and I am doing fine."

"It's black humour, you know. Really, I have to laugh, because if you can't laugh at it what else can you do?"

"I said to the doctor, who was dressed like a Martian in a protective suit, are you kidding me?"

"I can probably renovate any house now [after having watched innumerable home renovation shows while in isolation]. So, if you are looking for someone, let me know."

"I remember thinking, when the doctor told me I had COVID-19, 'Screw this, I'm not letting a stupid virus get me, not after making it this long with my brain tumour'."

"I know that sounds crazy, but that's what I thought: Forget it. I'm not dying now -- and I came through it."

Rene Galipeau, 75, Toronto

The retired mining executive has indeed experienced quite a few health challenges in his lifetime. Enviably, he managed somehow, to retain both his sense of humour and his hold on life. This man has had a long history with cancer -- all kinds of cancer. Not in itself surprising, perhaps, since there is a family history of cancer, and deaths resulting from that genetic inheritance. The first time he waltzed with cancer was 28 years ago when he was diagnosed with a late stage lymphoma.

That was a time when it was very handy to have close relatives. His identical-twin brother volunteered with a bone marrow transplant, and that meant his survival. Over the years that followed Rene Galipeau was diagnosed with skin cancer, bladder cancer and prostate cancer. And he managed to survive them all. And then, a year-and-a-half ago, came news of another cancer. The specialists advised him this time it was a brain tumour, and in their experienced wisdom he had eight months to live.

René Galipeau on a walk with two of his six grandchildren. Courtesy René Galipeau

What he did within that eight months was to focus on his family. With six grandchildren that meant a lot of time spent giving all of them special attention. Of the two grandchildren who love hockey he planned a trip to Boston to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs play the Boston Bruins. Two of the grandchildren focus on baseball, so he went with them to Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. With the final two grandchildren, their grandfather planned a trip to Quebec City for a live history lesson.

"Everybody said I was crazy, but I got all the trips done in the first six weeks. But now I am still here", he mused. Then, more latterly, he experienced several seizures and was hospitalized on March 17. There, doctors confirmed that it wasn't his brain tumour that was involved, but another illness altogether; COVID-19. And then, the following day his wife of 32 years was confirmed with the novel coronavirus as well. The hospital sent them home to "ride things out", together.

Their 19th floor condominium has a picturesque view of Lake Ontario and no doubt they spent many hours gazing out at the winter lake. Mary Galipeau was bedridden with a high fever and was much more ill than her husband whose symptoms galvanized around a cough and heavy fatigue. Neither has any idea how they might have become infected with the virus. They hadn't travelled, and there was nothing out of the ordinary in their usual routine.

But that's the thing about this mysterious new respiratory disease; it is readily transmissible, and its active phase on hard surfaces is prolonged and easily picked up by the unaware, left to infect others by people who in all likelihood themselves had no symptoms and had no idea that they were infected and acting in society as vectors.

Mr. Galipeau attributes his body's ability to withstand the truly deadly illnesses he has been exposed to, to the influence of his wife. Her sunny, optimistic outlook on life reflects his own. His identical twin brother had contracted the same brain cancer that now afflicts Rene, but his brother died of it. An older brother had lung cancer at age 48 and died from that. 

Now, both Mary and Rene are looking forward to summer, where they plan on spending quality time on Lake Erie, at the family cottage.

Details from article by Joe O'Connor, National Post

Lake Erie, Cottage Life