Fatal plane crash reported near Squamish, B.C.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
On May 6, I celebrated 50 years at CTV —yes 50!
Reaching this milestone, I am reflecting on my experiences at CTV News and the parts of my life that have been public all these years and the things about myself I’ve kept private.
With time, there is safety in revealing the most personal aspects of myself, so I am sharing with you my own cancer journey, which really started with my husband.
Michael died in 2005 after a six-month battle with cancer. Afterwards I read and reread journalist Joan Didion’s book “The Year of Magical Thinking.” It’s a brilliant account of Didion’s first year of coping with life after her husband’s death. She explains her grief process and how during the days and months that followed, she believed, if a person hopes for something enough or does the right thing over and over, bad events can be reversed. Didion writes about keeping her husband’s shoes, just in case he comes back and needs them.
I did the same thing. It was only when I was ready to move forward, that I was able to donate Michael’s shoes to a men’s shelter.
And then, without warning, two years after his death, I was plunged back into coping again.
An annual mammogram revealed a small lump on my right breast, unnoticed to touch or the naked eye. I was 57 years old.
I remember the day as if it was yesterday. A call from the hospital to come back for a second scan; the concerned faces of the technician, the radiologist and the biopsy that followed. I went home with a patch on my breast to wait for the results.
A call the next morning from the doctor confirmed I had breast cancer.
My worst fear was sharing the news with my three daughters who were missing their father.
I knew they would go to that dark place; losing me, too.
Let me tell you how challenging it is to focus on being optimistic when the universe is pulling you down. I had experienced far too much death; a son, when I was in my 30s; my mother in my 40s; and then at 55, my partner of 35 years.
I knew I had to find the strength for my girls and somehow I did.
I turned to music and dance to soothe and centre myself; and I spent time with those who brought me laughter.
But I focused on something far more important; my daughters. They inspired me to steady myself for what was to come.
I wanted to be around to watch them grow into the marvellous women they are today; to find love, make babies and build lives for themselves. I could not leave them.
Surgery, a lumpectomy, was scheduled to remove the tumour. A biopsy, ten days later, revealed it was small, hormone-driven and had likely not spread.
It had been caught early, which made me one of the lucky ones.
Treatment included weeks of radiation; but I opted out of the safety net of chemotherapy after consultation with my oncologist and a test to determine the likelihood of the cancer’s return.
It’s a decision my doctor told me could be the wrong one, if I let fear of a recurrence control my life. She suggested I do my best to avoid stress and focus on building tools to strengthen my resilience.
Ten years of the hormone pill tamoxifen followed; and here we are, sixteen years after the diagnosis.
Several of my colleagues have also had breast cancer or are currently in treatment. Many, if not most, have chosen to go public.
I kept my cancer secret from viewers at the time, largely because I was dealing with a lot, as a single mother of three daughters. I also worried that my aging and widowed father would be broken by the news. He had survived the Second World War, had endured loss, but watching his only child tackle cancer, would have been too much for him.
He is gone now; and with the passage of time, I am ready to reveal personal aspects of my life never shared publicly before, as part of a CTV News Special called “I’m Sandie Rinaldo” celebrating my 50 years at the network.
The Canadian Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for all cancers, based on the most recent data collected, was 64 per cent, compared to 55 per cent in the early 1990s and 25 per cent in the 1940s; progress made through early detection and advances in treatment.
Growing up, we couldn’t say the C-word. It was as if uttering it aloud would make it a reality. Well, for the one in eight women who will get breast cancer in their lifetime, it is very much a reality, just as it is for anyone who has lost someone they love to the disease.
Cancer is very much a part of my story and I hope that sharing it now, even all these years later, will help others facing their own journey. You’re not alone.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
Two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died Saturday morning at age 30, one day after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial.
The family of one of the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 says they are 'thankful' for a decision by a Calgary immigration board to deport the driver of the truck involved.
The three people killed in last weekend's tragic collision between a speedboat and a fishing boat north of Kingston are being remembered Friday.
An emotional outburst in a London, Ont. courtroom Friday disrupted the sentencing hearing of a woman who pleaded guilty for her part in the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdallah.
American Airlines has replaced the law firm that told a judge a nine-year-old girl was negligent in not noticing there was a camera phone taped to the seat in an airplane lavatory.
A year has passed since two-year-old Vienna Irwin was found on the property of a home-based daycare in small-town Ontario, but her family says they are no closer to answers of what happened that day.
Nicki Minaj's concert in Manchester scheduled for Saturday night was postponed after police in the Netherlands discovered marijuana in her bags as she was preparing to leave the country.
A man is dead, and three others are in hospital after a flying wheel crashed into a coach bus on the QEW in St. Catharines.
When one is extended an invitation to the Royal Garden Party in London, England, there's undoubtedly no shortage of pomp and circumstance. Barrie, Ont. natives Megan Kirk Chang and her husband Brandon experienced just that as they entered the prestigious event hosted at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.
An unlikely celebrity emerged from social media to cheer on the Edmonton Oilers as they face the Dallas Stars tonight in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
The proprietors of Regina's sole discount theatre are aware they're carrying on a significant legacy.
When Jujhar Mann said he wanted to be a pastry chef on a grade school career project, he didn't imagine that pursuing his dream would land him on a popular Netflix baking competition.
A city known for its history, ties to outer space and southern barbecue, is also home to a Winnipeg chef dishing out dozens of perogies.
A Montreal photographer captured the moment a Canada goose defended itself from a fox at the Botanical Garden.
Public libraries in Atlantic Canada are now lending a broader range of items.
Flashes of purple darting across the sky mixed with the serenading sound of songs will be noticed more with spring in full force in Manitoba.
Catching 'em all with impressive speed, a 7-year-old boy from Windsor, Ont. who only started his competitive Pokémon journey seven months ago has already levelled up to compete at a world championship level.